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Mick's Arcade Cabinet - Page1
Page the first - in which I design and build a cheap and cheerful control panel.
I've been a fan of MAME for a good few years and I've always wanted to do it justice by creating a dedicated arcade cabinet. I decided to go for it now my kids are old enough to play Gauntlet! I was going to use my Xmas and birthday allowance to get a GP2X handheld Linux console but I decided I'd be better off spending my time and creative efforts on a large tangible project with an end product that I can share with my family rather than spending more time coding!
I placed an online order on Monday (16 Jan 06) with Ultimarc for two Mag-Stik Plus joysticks (4-8-way selector and magnetic self-centering mechanism) and eight pushbuttons and I received them on the Thursday morning!
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As it happens I was at home to receive the package on Thursday morning looking after Ruby, my eldest daughter, who was suffering with a high fever from tonsilitis :( .
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Whoa! I'm impressed with the engineering quality of these things.
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2 players! My proposed layout giving each player 4 buttons.
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This is what I'm going to use to provide the controls with an input to the computer: it's a keyboard controller out of an old 104-key Cherry keyboard (circa 1993). As you can see, it has an AT plug so I have added an AT-PS/2 adapter.
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Here's the back. I've been playing with keyboard controllers as part of my ongoing DefenderBoard project (a keyboard for playing Defender!).
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Matrix ribbon connector A - it has 8 conductors.
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Matrix ribbon connector B - it has 19 conductors. I started mapping the keyboard matrix by shorting out pairs of connectors and seeing the keycodes produced. The controller has an 8 x 19 matrix giving a maximum of 152 combinations.
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Cherry.
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board detail
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mapping the matrix by shorting out pairs of coordinates
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mapping the matrix
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I broke open the ribbon connector shrouds to expose contacts for soldering
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I soldered tails onto all contacts
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then hid my ugly soldering!
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here's matrix axis B
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prototype 1 panel woodwork
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back of prototype 1
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size of prototype 1 600mm x 300mm - will be shaped and coated
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Shaped front profile and surfacing with neoprene.
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Neoprene surface.
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From... discarded mousemats!
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Slightly untidy wiring!
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Ruby is the red wizard!
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Wood paneling installed for front and sides.
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I need to do something about that wiring!
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Added prototype cardboard button-box for Menu, Pause, Escape, Coin1, Coin2, etc.
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A new wiring strategy: connection blocks for each set of controls.
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View from back with new wiring - controller not yet fitted.
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Wed Feb 8 2006: wiring finished - now using telephone engineers' patch wire
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A tidier job. The wire is solid-cored so stays nicely where routed.
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All required key contacts are patched into the matrix.
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I did want to use krone punch-down idc terminal blocks but didn't have any to hand
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Defender. I use the red joystick for up & down, the red button for reverse, and the right-hand buttons: blue = smartbomb, orange = fire, yellow = thrust, green = hyperspace.
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I'm not fully decided how to integrate the button box into the panel (if at all). I guess I'll wait until I'm building the cabinet.
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