My Emulation/arcade project

[Gwendalin]

I'll post some pics of my arcade coffee table i built in a little bit as well.

I actually have some of the greyed out systems, i just don't know how to get them to show up yet.

I also have a few other systems that i have not installed yet, so my list is actually a little larger than this.

Bask in the glory of my emulation!!!

[Beefy Kasplant]

Aren't you every nerd's dream girl..

Really want to see that thing in action. Up with those pics!

[Gwendalin]

Here we GOOOOO!!!!!

As you'll see my kitty was very interested and wanted to help!

Here was my prototype controller i built a long time ago.

Here is the inside... I hacked a keyboard to use as my encoder... it was pretty fun mapping out all the connections to see what button was being pressed. Unfortunately it did not work to well because if you press too many buttons at once you get ghosting. Since some of the keys share the same inputs, if you press keys that overlap you'll get a different key pressed as well. I had to try to space as many buttons apart as possible. Fun project though!

Here are some of the tools i used

My button template made out of cardboard

My nifty hole drill

I went to Ikea, and bought a cheap $30 coffee table, and hollowed it out. it really was cheap... it was thin fake wood with a bee hive shape cardboard structure to make it firm

I cut out space for the buttons and joystick. i had to glue a thicker piece of plywood to the table to mount the joystick to so it had more support, and so the screws would not poke through the table.

Added my player 1 and player 2, and coin buttons and cut out some more stuff.

Started wiring things to my new encoder made specifically for arcade emulation

Added a back board to mount my monitor to.

player 1, 2 and coin buttons

Added a trackball

Cut apart an old PC tower and mounted it to the underneath of the table with the power supply and a drive tower to hold the drives. Also mounted the monitor.

Drive tower

Another look... table is standing on it's side.

Trackball unlit.

Trackball lit. I'm using a flashlight as i dont have the leds for it yet.

Buttons lit. I have different types of buttons because the solid colored ones are from my old prototype before they had light up buttons. The buttons will eventually light up and let you know which ones to use. They can also change color.

Close up of lit button, compared to unlit

Here is the system up and running showing MAME

Zoomed out shot

It's been an ongoing saga trying to get everything set up but it is fun.

I did learn that you can only remove so much stuff from the table, and the little bee hive stuff actually supports the table pretty well. Where my player 1 and 2 buttons are, a LOT of the bee hive stuff was removed to make room for the buttons and stuff, and after leaning on that area of the table, it eventually cracked, and now the front of the table is broken. The buttons should be placed in a different spot. I was also going to put plexi glass on the top and use it as an actual coffee table, but i decided to have this be an experiment and not spend the money. Good thing since it broke. I also learned that viewing LCD screens that are laying down is not the best. I had to flip the monitor upside down... for some reason you can see a monitor laying flat upside down better, but it is still hare to see sometimes... you have to be looking straight down at it. It's a little short to sit around and it starts hurting your back being scrunched over trying to see the screen.

Now i plan on building an upright hybrid, and connect to my 55' tv for the monitor, but that will take time and money which i dont have right now. I also plan on building a virtual Pinball machine!!!! those look fun to build.

This is kind of what i have planned for my new build.

Hope you enjoyed my project! ^.^

[Kibbelz]

I like it a lot, I can imagine the buttons on a horizontal surface wouldn't be as comfortable as a controller though!