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The idea for this cabinet was to create the ultimate single player gaming and entertainment center.
- Want to play an arcade game? Done - MAME supports 3000+ games, and this machine supports single and dual joystick games, spinner games, trackball games, and even driving games.
- Play console games? Got that too - the machine currently runs Kega (Sega Genesis), Stella (Atari 2600), Nemu64 (Nintendo 64), and X64 (Commodore 64) for "old school" consoles, and has a built-in XBox for next-gen games.
- PC gamer? Well, the internals are a computer after all. Actually, I play more PC games on this machine than on my faster desktop machine -- it's just really well suited for gaming.
- Wanna watch a movie? There's a TV tuner, and DVDs can be played on either the computer's DVD drive or the XBox, and both have wireless remote controls. I even use this machine as a PVR (personal video recorder) to capture my favorite shows onto the internal harddisk.
- Gonna have a party? The machine has stereo speakers, a decent subwoofer, and is networked, so of course it can act as an MP3 jukebox, pulling tunes off my home network server while showing visualizations on the 21" monitor. With the XBox's Music Mixer software, I can even plug in a microphone and use the cab as a Karaoke machine.
This cabinet required more rework and custom construction than my previous
project (see my first MAME cabinet project),
primarily due to the fact that the cabinet didn't have a standard control panel
to start with. The original cabinet was a ticket-dispensing light-gun game
entitled "Miner's Revenge", and so the original construction consisted of three
major pieces: the main game cabinet, a smaller cabinet which sat out front and
housed the light guns, holsters, coin mech's, and the ticket
holders/dispensers, and a box which connected these two cabinets together and
routed cables between them.
When broken down, the region of the main cabinet just below the monitor housed
the main speakers, volume control, and operator buttons. All of this was hidden
behind a removable vented panel and became the ideal area for adding my new
controls. Since this cabinet previously just housed a monitor, it is shorter
than a standard arcade machine, so with the addition of a control panel to the
front, the layout is great for play from a chair.
Here you can see the original complete assembly as I received it.
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First, the cab was broken down into its three component structures. Next, the
"guts" of the previous machine, the glass and bezel, marquee and lights, coin
mechs and coin box door, ticket holders, wiring, speakers, light-guns and
holsters, etc. were removed. Both the main and secondary cabinets were then
thoroughly cleaned and sanded.
The control panel was custom built to cover the removable speaker cover panel.
The original speaker and control mount area was knocked out, and "wings" were
added on either side to cap the ends of new control panel. The new control
panel itself is essentially a long box missing three sides (back and ends), and
then drilled and routed for the controls (three joysticks, one spinner, and
twenty buttons). The control panel box was mounted using custom fashioned
latches, a piano hinge, and also has cables on either end for additional
support while open.
Doors were added to the main cabinet (for access to the subwoofer and XBox)
and to the secondary cabinet (for extra storage).
The cabinet was completely repainted, new t-molding was added, and MAME side
and marquee artwork was applied.
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As this conversion contains both a standard PC and an XBox console, there are
two removable shelves fitted into the lower body of the cabinet. The bottom of
the cab contains the subwoofer and volume control as well as the power strips,
fuses, and main power switch for the PC and cabinet lights. The system volume
control, PC power and reset buttons, and XBox power disc tray can all be
accessed via a door in the front of the cabinet.
Above the subwoofer and power system is the lower shelf which holds the XBox
console and the High Definition pack for XBox output, which in turn feeds into
an HD to SVGA converter. Because of the specific choice of High Def pack and
converter, XBox games which support high definition TV modes can be played on
the cabinet SVGA monitor at full resolution.
Above the XBox shelf is the PC mainboard shelf. This assembly holds the PC
motherboard, hard disk drive, and computer power supply. Once the shelf is in
place, cables from the motherboard run to the main control panel for the I-Pak
and Opti-Pak game controls interface boards, USB, memory card support, and the
DVD ROM drive.
A standard 21" SVGA computer monitor. With some minor metalworking
modifications to brackets on the back of the monitor and the addition of some
wooden legs, this assembly is easy to remove from the cabinet. The entire
assembly sits atop the monitor shelf built into the cabinet, and lag bolts
capped with large wing nuts are used to secure it.
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The control panel is shown here from both external and internal views, the
internal exposing the wiring and control interfaces. The custom panel has two
8-way Happ "Ultimate" microswitch joysticks side by side (intended for most
"fast" joystick games and those which use two sticks like "Smash TV",
"Assault", etc.), a larger, chrome trigger-fire joystick (for flight sims,
"Tron", etc.), an Arkanoid spinner (for "Arkanoid", "Tron", "Tempest", etc.),
as well as 8 buttons per side, and 2 coin and 2 start buttons. All controls are
wired up through an Ultimarc I-Pac and an Ultimarc Opti-Pac.
The control interfaces are mounted on the bottom of the control panel box. On
the right you can see the DVD-ROM and memory card drives which are accessible
from the front of the cabinet. In the top of the internal photo, you can also
make out the wing-nuts which hold the monitor assembly firmly in place, above.
A extra connection panel installed on my first cabinet worked out so well, I
decided that this cabinet deserved a similar treatment. In addition to the USB
connections and memory card slots this afforded for transferring files (since
there isn't a floppy disc drive on this box :-), I wanted an easier access
optical disc drive on this cabinet than the last, so the DVD-ROM drive opens
directly out the front of the control panel. The control box accepts two USB
connections, one IEE1394 firewire connection and one each of SD, Compact Flash,
Memory Stick, and SmartMedia cards.
Below the control panel is a top-hinged door which provides access to main
computer power and reset switches, the subwoofer and sound system volume, the
XBox power, controller connections, and game disc drawer. Not visible in the
picture, there are also video input and output connectors from the computer
video card.
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The fact that this cabinet originally consisted of two cabinets joined
together afforded a unique opportunity -- to make a secondary control panel
with extra controls and for storage of extra gaming hardware.
The fixed feet of the orginal cabinet were replaced with castors, and doors
were added in place of the original coin mechs and ticket dispensers. A
steering wheel was added for support of driving games, and wired up through a
Happ interface board. A large trackball was added to the right of the steering
wheel, wired up through a second Ultimarc Opti-Pac controller board. Both
controller interface boards connect to a USB hub which is contained inside this
cabinet, which then allows connection to the main cabinet to be achieved
through a single USB cable to one of the USB connectors on the main cab's front
panel. When disconnected, the entire construct can be wheeled out-of-the-way,
or spun around to be used as a desktop for the wireless keyboard and mouse.
While one of the top surfaces of the secondary cabinet contains the permanently mounted
trackball and wheel controls, the other side was left bare, containing just two sets of
mounting holes, arranged in two rectangles. These mounting holes are then used to attach
extra inter-changable "shelf modules" to the cabinet. One of these "modules" is actually
just a simple flat work surface which snaps onto the secondary cabinet using
dowel pins (the marbled surface in the pictures). I typically use this flat surface
as a desktop for the wireless computer keyboard and mouse.
Recently, I built another such "module" which mounts firmly onto the
secondary cabinet through the use of machine bolts and screw on knobs; I drop
this "shelf" in place, screw the knobs on from the inside, and then this
becomes a very solidly secured surface to which I can then attach other controllers,
such as my XBox racing wheel, shown in the pictures strapped to the blue shelf "module".
With the racing wheel firmly attached in this manner, I can play XBox racing games
like RalliSport Challenge or Project Gotham Racing without the wheel
moving around or having to sit in lap. But why go halfway -- we need pedals for a
really good racing experience! The answer: I've made inserts
which sit inside the base of the secondary cabinet's storage area and conform to the
shape of the pedal control box, holding it firmly in place. Now, when I play
one of these racing games, I pull up a chair, put my legs inside the cabinet
for the pedals, and hit the gas!
When the solid-mount shelf module is removed, it can stored inside the cabinet and still
provide plenty of storage for extra controllers: XBox game pads, a Microsoft
SideWinder force feedback joystick, MS SideWinder game pads, MS Game Commander
controller, etc. etc.
