4. assemble into cabinet with an old 21" cga arcade monitor (2nd hand for under $400) (when i'm 50)
however if i manage to see an cabinet going second hand anywhere...
did some benchmarking of mame0.61b under win2k. ran everything at 0 frame skip (no auto adjustment) to see what the box could do. my main box is a dual p3 1ghz, the jukebox is a celeron 300Mhz. perhaps this will help me work out what box i need..
| game | box | cpu usage | frame rate | min mhz |
|
| slapshot | main | 40%/0% | 60/60 | 400 |
| | jukebox | 80% | 60/60 | 240 |
|
| galaga | main | 30%/0% | 430/60 | 140 |
| | jukebox | 100% | 60/60 | 300 |
|
| raiden | main | 60%/2% | 60/60 | 600 |
| | jukebox | 100% | 35/60 | 520 |
|
| strider | main | 75%/2% | 60/60 | 750 |
| | jukebox | CORE DUMP :) | ?? | ?? |
8th nov 2002
wow! after only a week the parts have arrived! cripes, that was fast.
here's the joystick and a button. cool.
so for a first prototype i've cut out some holes for a joystick and 6 buttons for now. first lesson learnt: given the joystick screws onto the bottom of the board the width of the board takes away from the length of the joystick. for this reason the prototype joystick feels a little short.
so after a bit of wiring it's ready to go!!!
here's the basic layout, if anyone is interested, click for a bigger version
13th-14th nov 2002
right. time for prototype 2! this time we need a coin drop, player 1 and 2 start, room for another lot of controls and some other control buttons (such as pause for when the action in 'raiden' just gets toooo much for me to handle)
wow, look at all those wires
prototype 2! this should keep me going for awhile.
here's a bigger version of my dual controller layout. click for a bigger version
my next immediate step is to cat proof. one guess what my cat wants to do when she can see all those wires! i'd like to get a old cabinet for it but they seem hard to get. if i try to make one i know it'll turn out a total disaster!
20th apr 2005
well after a short delay (two and half years) i've done some more work on my arcade controls. at this rate i expect to be finished in 2020.
the biggest problem with prototype 2 was the loss of joystick length because i had
nothing to rout out a gap big enough to fit the joystick. nothing, until now!
with this awesome $30 jigsaw i've finally got something to cut out a gap for the joystick so i can bolt it to the top rather than than bottom.
hoorah! so after some precision cutting i've got one joystick sorted. check out how much longer the left joystick is now!
eventually i'll do the other. but for now, i dub thee prototype 2.5!
want list
