The Design

So I've finally made a start on the actual design of the cabinet. First off I had a look at the plans in my book and made a life size toilet roll version on my floor so I could get a good idea of the shape and size of it (I have no other materials to hand, so toilet roll was the only option ;). I don't like the shape of it at all though, or a lot of the other designs I've seen online, so I think I'm going to make my own design based on the Q*Bert cabinet.

I'll probably follow the same colour scheme too, although the yellow will be much brighter than the one in the picture. I do have the plans for the Q*Bert cab, but it's too small for a 2 player control panel, and for a normal front facing screen. I don't want one laying on it's back like in the original Q*Bert cab, so that means I've got to change all the measurements from the origianl plans to make it big enough for what I need. It's not quite as easy as it sounds when all you've got is a measuring tape and toilet roll. I should really go out and buy some proper supplies ;)

Guns and stuff

Rather than just having a PC in the cabinet, I've figured that I should probably throw a Saturn in there too. Mainly for gun games really, so I've gone out and bought myself two Saturn guns, Virtua Cop 1 & 2, HOTD and Area 51. That's what was in the box :P

What's in the box?

Lots of shredded paper, that's what. I love shredded paper! I think I'm going to have to get myself a shredder cos their cool :) There was more than just paper in the box though. Something for my project...kind of. Any ideas? :P Being up at 7am on a Saturday morning to answer the door to the postman isn't too fun though!

Blip, Blip, BLAM!

I've spent my first bit of money on my project. I've bought a book! I've heard it's very good, but it looks kind of thick. I better start reading if I want this thing built and pretty much finished by Christmas :P

Shopping List

The first version of my Shopping List page has gone online, and it's not looking good! My total is currently at £183.01 and I've not even started to price up the materials to build the actual cabinet yet, plus I'm probably forgetting loads of stuff I'll need. I hope it doesn't cost too much, cos I'm not a very rich boy! ;)

(Thanks to Bob for making the green tick for me :P)

The PC

I'm saving a lot of money by not having to buy a PC. Over the years I've probably collected enough bits and bobs to build 2 or 3 PC's, so I've put all the bests bits together and stuck them in a case to make my Arcade PC. It's not a bad little machine too! Although the 20gb hard drive that Windows is installed on seems a bit iffy, so that might need replacing. It's got a 80gb HD for ROMS/games too, and I'm not quite sure if that's going to be enough. We'll have to wait and see :)

One thing I will have to buy though is a new graphics card. The onboard one is perfectly fine outputting to a monitor, but my cabinet is going to be running on a TV so I'll need a graphics card that has TV out. I'm sure they're not much though.

I've got it setup temporarily on my landing. No idea why there, cos it's not exactly the best place for a PC, but ah well :P It's Windows XP on now plus a few games (Street Fighter II Turbo in the picture) and all seems to running well :) Not sure if it'll be staying in that case though. Might put it in a different one.

Introduction

Winter is coming, as is the bad weather and riding a bike in the rain, wind and snow is not fun! So I figured I needed a hobby/project to replace my weekend bike rides until the weather gets better, and that project is building an Arcade Machine :D

Like this one, but different!

Everyone seems to be building them these days, so it's nothing special really and mine probably won't be that much different than anyone elses, but I've always wanted one and I have a big empty space in my spare bedroom that needs filling ;)

Another part of my project isn't just to have Arcade games on (using the MAME emulator like most cabinets run) but to have EVERY game for EVERY games system from Pong up until the start of Saturn/Playstation days. I don't know if it's possible yet, but it'd be pretty cool saying that I have every game that came out before 1995! Well, maybe 'cool' is the wrong word, but you know what I mean :P

This site/blog is mainly just for me to keep track of things and for me to look back at in years to come and think "Wow, what a crap job I did" or "Oh yeah, I remember when I started that thing and never finished it" which is probably quite likely to happen ;)