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Ahltamachine
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This is my home arcade box which we named the Ahltamachine. The cabinet was built from scratch and I still need to complete the marquee (as you can see). There are two hinged doors at the bottom where the CPU is held (and wheel when not in use). There is a keyboard shelf between the monitor and the controller behind a hinged door and on a sliding shelf. Also, the cabinet is built in two pieces that come apart above the keyboard. The cabinet is running MAME on a very old Gateway (350Mhz P2) which plays the older games well enough, but new games, especially graphics intensive ones are simply not playable. The detachable steering wheel is wired to the game port. I only really use it to play Outrun. There are also two buttons wired into the wheel as button 1 and 2 of the game port (which I have configured to gas and break for Outrun). |
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The buttons and joysticks were originally wired through an old Packard Bell keyboard, but eventually I broke down and bought a keyboard controller because my soldering skills suck and it was a pain to repair the connections which came lose every few months. A serial track ball is also mounted with the controls. The joysticks and buttons are from Happ, the trackball I bought through e-bay for $1. The escape, arrow and coin buttons I bought at Radio Shack. |
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Above the main controller are two headphone jacks, a switch to turn the speakers off, volume and tone controls. These are all wired to the amplifier I pulled from the speakers that came with the computer. A Pause and Service button is also in this panel. There are also three power switches that are wired to three standard outlets (it's all in a separate compartment within the cabinet) and currently control the marquee light, power to the monitor and power to the amp. The graphics on the control box I grabbed from the
internet and just glued on and then spayed over them with a clear varnish. |
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I also wrote my own Mame Front-end.? It?s written in Java.? Click on the screen image to learn more about it. |
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Here are some useful links if you'd like to learn more about building a home arcade. |
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If you want more details about this project
or have
any comments, feel free to drop me an -email.
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