I build a MAME machine a while ago, and promised myself I’d import the docs at one point. This is that point. Here is the Arcade entry from the old site.
MAME is a Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. Basically, you run the MAME emulator on a computer, and you can play all your favorite arcade games (if you can find the ROMs). But that’s just the beginning of it… I started playing my favorite games on my desktop, but something was missing: That whole arcade experience.
I decided to build my own MAME cabinet and here’s a record of that. All the information on building it came from Build Your Own Arcade Controls or links from those pages, so I’m not going to repeat them here.
Go there, read, read, read, and look at the example cabs, you can find free plans on line if you keep looking. Buy Happ controls. I got better deals for joysticks and buttons off of eBay then any local (Calgary, AB. Canada) supplier. ($7 local for one button… $1.50USD through ebay as an example of how bad prices are here)
This is a work in progress. The finishing touches still need to be done to the cabinet.
So here’s my ongoing journey back into my wasted youth… enjoy!
Ok, so here’s the start of it all… I found a guy in the Buy ‘n Sell giving away 4 arcade cabs.
But I had to take them all. 1 was crap, this blue one was the best and I have two others that I will start on one day 
There were some controls in the cabs. Pretty damaged and rusted, but I cleaned them up and they were at least workable until my Happ order came thru eBay.
So I gutted the cabs, salvaged what I could and began the creation.
First thing first. I had to have a way of getting my controls attached to the computer. From the forums and all the instructions on Build Your Own Arcade Controls I decided to build the keyboard hack.
The idea is that you take apart a keyboard, and grab the encoder, then hook up the joystick and buttons to replace the keys you need.
Here’s a close-up of a keyboard encoder. Notice the USB connector above it. I know, I know, USB keyboard specs limits you to 6 simultanious key presses.
This actually isn’t an issue and you’ll believe me once you see my initial panel. (It did cause a problem later on though…)
So here’s a screen shot of my Keyboard Matrix.
I used an El cheapo $10 keyboard from Future Shop. Cost was my driving factor on this initial build.
I took a picture of the encoder labeled the connections. I also decided that it would be great to be able to plug in different panels, so I hooked it all up to a hard drive cable. I’ve got tones of dead drives lying around, so I was going to use their connectors on each panel I created. (Again, I could have spent money on Molex connectors to make it easier, but trying to save where I could)
So I plugged in the encoder, and started shorting the connections and recording what keys came up on my keymapper.
It was all good fun until I hit the shutdown combo(H11) and the computer shut down. Shit! Thought I blew something up
You might be able to read the diode info in the spreadsheet. Diodes are used to prevent masking and ghosting. I didn’t use them on the initial panel… didn’t need to as the number of buttons allowed me to avoid the corners.
Here is the best explanation of masking/ghosting I found (by Dave Dribin).
Finally done! Here’s the back side of my first panel, w00t!
Now you see why a keyboard hack works for me… a 2 button, single player setup doesn’t have a lot of problems.
Below the panel is the keyboard encoder with the HD cable to make it easy to swap out panels.
The hole in the panel is for my spinner.
A home made spinner. Made from a mouse, paper clip, 2 washers, bearing and platter from a hard drive (told you I had lots).
This sucked. It spun nice, but the paper clip krazy glued to the board broke a few times, and lining it up right so the movement was smooth was a real bitch. It really was a lot of trouble, and I wasn’t happy with the results.
Bought an El Cheapo $99 19″ TV from Future Shop and just set it in the case.
I had to attach a board for it to sit on, and put a piece of strapping in behind it to keep it there.
Quality was crap. It didn’t have SVGA, so I used the RCA out, and man it was so awful! I returned the TV to get one with SVGA.
Can’t return this one
So an extra $30 got me a 20″ TV with SVGA and composite inputs. Unfortunately, the TV was too wide to just slip into the cabinet, so I took it out of the case.
DO NOT DO THIS This can kill you even with the TV unplugged. They store enough power to kill days after they have been unplugged. Seriously; you fuck up, you die. It’s that simple.
Here she is in her new home… Needs some paint and a bezel. I eventually made the bezel out of hardboard and painted it black.
Back shot of the TV in the cabinet. This is totally unsafe, wide open like this. If you touch the wrong part, you can get killed.
But I have no kids (no cards in the mail on fathers day yet) and am not worried about it during construction. (I will be putting a back panel on their to keep the nephews out.)
The coin door. For some reason, this one piece was critical for me. I needed to have it to get that full arcade experience.
Every one of the cabs I got had a coin door. This one even had coin mechs, and working lights! I wired the switched up to the keyboard encoder and it worked slick!
So here’s the first working rev of the machine.
I used the speakers from the TV and just fed out from my sound card into the tv. Worked great.
I few coats of paint on the panel and the bezel and she’s starting to come together. Most importantly I could play games!
I played Ms. PacMan, Galaga, and a bunch of other single player games…. But I wanted to play Robotron, and Smash TV, and kick someones ass at Mortal Kombat…
So I designed and built my ‘real’ panel. I finally received my eBay order for my Happ controls. (It was only 3 weeks… but felt like an eternity)
This panel had to have 2 player fight game layout with 8 way joysticks, dedicated 4 way stick, spinner for Tempest and some control buttons.
I put in all the controls and wired it up to my tried and true keyboard hack. I added in the diodes to get around the masking/ghosting problem. But that caused another big problem; latency.
The wire lengths and the diodes slowed signal propagation down so much that their was a noticeable delay in the controls. I was devastated. Gameplay sucked! So I did what I had to do… Figuring my total expenses so far were $140 for a TV, $10 for a keyboard, $80USD controls, I could afford to splurge…
I bought an IPac2 from Ultimarc. I rewired the panel, and it just worked like a damn!
So responsive. Totally worth it.
I then re-engineered my spinner from a new mouse (another junker I had laying around) and an old floppy drive motor as the bearing.
This time I used a metal PCI slot cover in place of a paper clip… much better.
Still might buy a Vortex or a V2 from Oscar one of these days…
Here’s an underside shot of the finished panel.
I’m very happy with the workings of it, but the design and layout needs a bit of work yet. To do it over, I would have used the quick connects instead of soldering each lead on the switches. Better for ‘upgrades’ and changes.
Panel mounted in the case. You can see that there isn’t really a lot of playing surface around the joysticks, so I’ll be fixing that when I rebuilt the panel.
It’s also way to ‘thick’. Can’t even see the coin slots that were so important to me in the beginning.
Rear shot… needs to be sealed up yet. I put in a master switch with a power bar for the TV, computer, and marquis lights.
Unfortunately, the computer can’t power up when power restored, so I still have to get back in there and hit the button.
I cut the main TV controls into the bezel. Looks OK, but I’ll be changing that one day.
Final shot to date. (14Feb05)
No Marquis, or artwork done, and needs some more tweaking…
I’ll post system specs another day. Gotta play a few more games first.
Well, there it is. I have done more work on it (and the basement) since Feb of 2005 (has it really been that long!?) but haven’t taken any more pictures. Lots of family and friends have played on it and we’ve had a blast! Still play on it quite regularly.
I’m planning to upgrade the hardware, make a new case, perhaps put in a LCD now that they are dirt cheap, and upgrade mame. Actually, I’ll prolly sell this one cheap, and build a new one once the shop is done.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this marathon post. I sure hated cutting and pasting all the text. But building the Mame box was fun!
