Using mame/ building a mame cabinet

Well after a few months of thinking of building a mame cabinet, I'm on my way. I thought I would post my progress and such. This is a semi FULL tutorial that will break down each piece of building a cabinet. Also below is a pdf file that will help you on your geek, handyman of a trek. Also check this instructable, themakeclass did a fine job http://instructables.com/id/Arcade-Cabinet---Play-arcade-games-old-skool/ I'd like to think of mine as a "puddy" to fill in the "cracks" where themakeclass had "cracks"

Step 1 MAME 32

To start off you will need to download a version of Mame, to help with this part I stole some videos off of you tube to help because me explaining it will take forever!!! Google "roms" to find some cool games to play on the emulator. My favorite site is http://www.rom-world.com/dl.php?name=MAME because its easy to use and has screen shot and a lot of other user friendly features

Comments

[TheRealDutchOwner]

Or buy a VGA/DVI/HDMI to AV out cable.

[The Papier Boy]

i've always wanted to do this.

[Eirinn]

If you use mechanical keyboards you wont have keyboard blocking problems. The reason they're blocking is that newer keyboards are cheapily made with silicone buds under them.

[tinker234]

nice i might use this for a old monitor

[delamaize]

wow man, looks good, I did one kinda on the same idea as yours, a few diffrences thought. I couldn't find a trackball mouse at the time, so I didn't add one. I used a old monitor insted of a TV, for the same reasons you did, I had the thing already, and it was free. I went to my local goodwill and picked up a USB keyboard for the controls. the big diffrence between what you did and what I did was connecting the 2 together. my keyboard had 2 plugs that connected the carbon contact sheets, I just un-soldered the plugs, soldered in wires in their place, mapped all the wires, and hooked up the controls. My Cabinet only had 4 buttons per player, 2 players. and was the older style cabinet, like pac-man style (not a pac cabinet) I used the onboard sound card, and didn't need an amp, I was pretty impressed with the output. I actualy hid my coin button in a loose bolt in the speaker grill, push the bolt, activated the button, I also hooked up p1 and p2 coin slots to the actuall coin mech, so you could actually use quaters or slugs.
I hat to give up my cabinet when I moved, I wish I still had it. might have to build another one in the future.

[frisbeechamp1983]

your trackball there looks like HAL 9000

[rosenred]

If you were to use two USB keyboards (one to remain and one to be hacked) or one USB and one PS2 you would have no problem having them both hooked on :)

[darkblackspawn]

 Great idea!!! and also, what a coincidence, I also have that very same trackball mouse :D, just one question, which of the mouse buttons should I use?

[TitanTechRobotics]

I downloaded the .133 version of mame and put zipped roms in the rom folder, and whenever I try to play any of the games it says "The selected game is missing one or more ROM or CHD images. Please select a different game. Press any key to continue." DO you know what is wrong an how I can fix this. Please help Thanks in advance

[slimguy379]

yes if u notice mame has a million versions. this is because as soon as they release a new version certain roms will not work after they get a few new roms working. so there will always be a lack of working roms in EVERY version of mame. though i had a copy of mame beta which is the newest and most likely best running mame to date. though i say its the best to date i still have problems with games such as metal slug or similar games. its all in the software download a newer or even older version of mame and try re-running the roms hopefully it works. also be careful as to where you download roms most are junk, or just spam. so just maybe re download the roms as well from another site. hope this helps

[antienoob]

oh and thnx.

[antienoob]

yer the middle one doesn't work lol.

[antienoob]

unfortunately my stupid computor has been silly and i cant view videos on this website could you tell me were i could find these videos on youtube. ty

[slimguy379]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfsE5NQ4yys&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.instructables.com%2Fid%2FSEWZ1MMFHJMR57N%2F%3Fcomments%3Dall&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoY-2qSclqw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.instructables.com%2Fid%2FSEWZ1MMFHJMR57N%2F%3Fcomments%3Dall&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg7Nidhg12U&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.instructables.com%2Fid%2FSEWZ1MMFHJMR57N%2F%3Fcomments%3Dall&feature=player_embedded

middle one might not work

[N1CK4ND0]

(removed by author or community request)

[N1CK4ND0]

You know the second after I posted this, I clicked the pdf... doh?

[moesboy]

whats some good games

[slimguy379]

battle toads, pac man, 1942, 1943, super mario, donkey kong ... i mean any old school games i can run, also it does newer 90s games like street fighter, marvel vs capcom. and metal slug. awesome games....

[IG-88]

Nice job on the tutorial. A piece of advice if I may. Instead of doing a keyboard hack just spend $25 on a Keywiz encoder. By the time you buy all the "extras" needed to get the hack working you'll have spent the $25 anyway. Not to mention it will save you several hours of work and you will NEVER have any blocking or ghosting issues. I've made several keyboard hacks. And while it was great soldering practice they hardly ever worked correctly. Not worth the effort!

[slimguy379]

well wouldn't you still have to wire everything to your buttons even if your running a Key wiz encoder? plus i build computers so i have a spare keyboard laying around so that was no expense to me. and considering i did like 10 buttons tops it really wasn't that much work. plus i am yet to have ghosting or blocking,i have read up on this subject on many forums and i have know about this issue. i have had the machine running for well over 1/2 a year with use every other day and no issues. i appreciate the concern but really not needed

[IG-88]

Yes you still have to wire everything to the keywiz but the difference is it was designed with arcade controls in mind. The inputs are clearly labeled (meaning no chasing down what button on the keyboard activates a trace) The board is easy to wire and solder. There is no "sanding off the carbon" off the traces on the keyboard encoder, no lifting of the traces if too much heat is applied or shorting if a novice gets heavy with solder. Also of the 25 or so keyboards I tore apart only about half of them even had a board you could solder on, and of them some were so tiny it took really thin and delicate wire & precision soldering to keep the lines from shorting out. Add to that buying a breadboard and a IDE terminus and there you have it.

I'm not criticizing your work in anyway, all I'm saying is I've gone this route before and to me the keywiz (or ipac) is the only way to go. A 3-4 hr keyboard hack can be done in 30 min with far more reliable results.

[slimguy379]

well thanks, i guess i dont need this info, but i bet the other people who are interested in doing this, may take this idea in consideration

[youareacunt]

(removed by author or community request)

[munchman]

I saw something like this in a PC World magazine a while back and was immediately interested. After seeing this here. I think I'm going to have a crack at this.

[Brother_D]

I am definitely gonna do this as a thanksgiving/winter/summer break project. Thanks!

[slimguy379]

pleas I know everybody would love for you to post pictures

[Mr. Rig It]

This is a great idea and I am sure it will turn out to be fantastic. However, you said this is a full tutorial but you don't have any pics f the completed project. I want to politely suggest you review your written instructions. Your Instructable has a lot of grammatical errors, punctuation, capitalization etc. I don't mean to sound negative, I am just trying to make a cool Instructable even better.

[slimguy379]

if you watch one of my videos i believe its on step 6 you can see how far I've gotten but thanks anyways

[LinuxH4x0r]

Nice!