Documented by Bill Harper for his son Sir William D of Harper, Cheif Gaming Officer
 We
started with building the
Base, and connecting the 2 sides, then the top as the picture
shows. Trying to keep it square, we cheated and used metal "L"
brackets. The material we used, is called MDF. The design
came from a How To Book we bought from Fry's Electronics. Back to
MDF, its supper compressed wood, but used for furniture building.
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This
Project was inspired by my teenager Sir William D. of the game world,
who really likes games, gaming, the history and he wanted
to build a video arcade for the Old School Games !!! We plan to
Run MAME
(a shareware) emulator on
it, and we have a
ton and a half of ROM files. Rom Files are the actual Games we
can run on the mame emulator. MAME runs many binary formats fro
the original code of the gaming device. We will need to test and
organize
them, but
that will be the Fun Part of the Project. The idea to build this was inspired by the work of others ....which can bee seen in the left hand column. Many fancy fancy designs out there, all running with a PC and the MAME emulator in side with video arcade style games. This page is us documenting our project, so this page will be added to over time as we progress on our project MAME. We plan on running MAME perhaps on Unix. Depends on how the Joy stick to Keyboard Controller we purchase works. |
 Someones else finished Project. Click here to see other projects |
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 The inside where our computer will go eventually ..... Lots of braces to hold this MDF stuff tight. You can not see it, but we have wheels on the bottom so we can move this monster around. |
 This one is pretty cool, lots of details, good color, and very neatly done. I hope ours comes out this good. |
 MAME Out Dude !!!!
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 The control area, where the joy sticks and button will go. |
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 We sanded and primered it with a first coat. The control board is not attached yet, still working on that piece, but the front door is attached. Lots of primer and sanding and prep work need to make it look nice. We are taking our time on this project so that it comes out very nice. Lots of primer (12 cans) and pre work, even before we paint it "FLAT' black. Fun and Games ..... I can't wait until we get to the fun part, the computer and Mame and the creation of our games we will host in our Mame Arcade. |
 Hmmm, what do we want to do with the top area??? Joy sticks, game buttons, and what else ?? OK, you can also see Christine in the Background, She is a 1966 Porsche 912E Racer. That project is on Hold, but should pickup soon. |
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 The Chief Architect for the project Sir William D. Our Very own Cheif Gaming Officer Yea Right !!! or was this his Dads Project and Design. or his brothers the Tominator !!!! Sir Thomas K. |
 See the front door is open, using European type hinges. Still need a bunch more primer, and to touch a few spots here and there, and fill in some cracks. Also need to make holes for the speakers, once we buy some. |
 Next is the Keyboard or Joystick and Buttons !!! This will be fun to design. We have 6 or 7 button for each player, and its a 2 player unit. 1 joystick per player. We will also have and <esc> and <cr> buttons at the top and also 1 or 2 player button, also at the top. The <esc> and <cr> will be used for getting in and out of games. The 6 or 7 buttons, will be mapped to a core set of buttons |
 Planning took hours for the Layout of the joystick and buttons. Hours and Hours so we finally decided on this layout and measurements. The Chief Architect made the finial call. |
The Next
Step is to get the Arcade buttons and joysticks situated. Below
is the Current plan and layout. 2 Joy sticks 7 buttons per player for control 4 buttons on the top for <cr> and <esc> and also for 1 and 2 player.  |
Note the 1 and 2 player buttons at the top.  Putting in the buttons just to see how they will look when finished ..... they look really cool and give us an idea as to the finished product. I need to figure out how to cut the square holes, my sons friends dad may have a tool to do this. |
R F M D ..... Submitted ..... via text messaging ... Request for Modification of Design: Submited by the head builder/designer To: Chief Architect Sir William of Dalbey. Engineer has done a slight modification on the design of the front door. We found thru testing that the hinges were not strong enough to hold up the door, so we shorted it. Basically we took the Length and divided it into 3 parts. You can see in the pictures to the Side. Does not look that bad at all. |
The Engineering Dept (Dad) modification of the front door design below.  |
 Wow! The door even opens, its not perfect but looks pretty good, or good enough for the project. |
Now the Black Painting Begins, we will probably use 20 cans of spray paint. This should take us a while.  |
Lots and lots
of painting for this project, then we will seal it with a clear coat of
some sort. We want this to look like the real thing !!! This is the inside, where we will put the computer Monitor and speakers. |
15 Cans of Paint, and its
starting to get there. Its really taking shape. We still
need to finish the joystick control area. But our focus is
finishing the BIG piece first.  |
| Please
don't look at my messy garage, but its a project shop, so lots goes one
in here, from bikes, to wood working, to my car christine. Project Mame !!!! This picture was taken 1/28/2006  |
Went out today, well last week when I was on vacation and spent $200 on
a mini P4 system. I bought a mini system with motherboard, and a P4
2.6Ghz for $200. Wow. I took the Hard drive and other things needed out
of the one we had that the CPU died on. This little baby below will
run our MAME arcade. It's booted and running MAME32 for Windows, and we have 12 ROM's loaded up and running. Can't wait to connect this to the Arcade it self !!!! Fun and Gaming !!!  |
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| Documented by Bill Harper |
