nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

MAME Cabinet

January 8, 2007


My MAME Cabinet over this past weekend, after I completed some general upgrades.
(Click for more MAME Cabinet (photo gallery retired) photos…)

Back in 2000 while still living at my parents house (this is both pre-apartment (photo gallery retired) and pre-condo) I ended up building a MAME Cabinet from scratch. (Yes, just a pile of wood.) While it has been in my basement, used on and off for years, I’d never taken the time to properly photograph it, nor write up anything about it. Well, now I did.

This past weekend I spent a fair amount of time on it, making a number of hardware and software changes, slightly upgrading MAME, moving to Compact Flash for storage, and generally cleaning it up. All in all, it looks like new again. Sure, it plays as it always has (read: excellent) but I feel as if I’ve rediscovered it.

After finishing up the upgrades I wrote up a (hopefully) complete document on my MAME Cabinet. This, along with high-res photos of it completed (photo gallery retired), high-res new photos (photo gallery retired), and the original webcam photos (photo gallery retired) have come together with loads of text to (hopefully) provide a good background on the cabinet, how it was built, and what it contains.

Tonight I still have to acquire the ~16GB of MAME ROMs I downloaded for it and process them so that I can properly pick from as inclusive of a list as possible for play, but this should only take some time. And while it’s downloading I can play some Bubble Bobble. Or Ms. Pac Man. Or Asteroids. Or Capcom Bowling. Or Gal’s Panic. Or Dig Dig. Or…

Posted in gamesmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

6 Responses

  1. kukhuvud January 8, 2007

    Ah, Bad Dudes… that really takes me back! :)

    Hard to believe that it isn’t an arcade leftover or a storebought cabinet; it looks really nice!

    1. c0nsumer January 8, 2007

      Thank you. :) It’s a dead on clone of a actual cabinet, made 4″ deeper, and with a slightly different rear. (Different panel, vent hole, etc.)

  2. thrantor January 9, 2007

    So what do the coin slots do? *grin* Or do they just go to the collection bin and not trigger anything?

    1. c0nsumer January 9, 2007

      As the write-up says:

      Microswitches located beneath each of the two coin mechanisms signal when coins have successfully been inserted into the machine. These two microswitches are connected via a cable to the rear of the control panel where the KE72-T translates them into keypresses. Players One and Two send keystrokes 5 and 6, respectively, the MAME defaults for coin insertions.

      ;)

      1. thrantor January 9, 2007

        Sweet.

        1. c0nsumer January 9, 2007

          Yeah. :) It works well… Although I often use the coin deposit button, as I don’t like keeping a stack of quarters around.

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