Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on my blog. The main reason is that blogging just doesn’t interest me that much anymore and I don’t really have much time left to do it.
But I hope to revive my blog with this post, and I’m planning to use it to post updates about this project I started working on. I decided to do this post in English again, as I know that a lot of people all over the world are interested in this kind of stuff.
Since a couple of months, I’m getting more and more interested in arcade cabinets and, by extension, the entire retro gaming scene. As a result, I decided to start with a MAME project to work on in my spare time (my working title is: “Project 20″. For those of you who don’t know MAME, I’ll give a short explanation what exactly the goal is of this project.
MAME (”Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator”) is an emulator that can run a huge amount of old arcade games on a regular PC. Since playing these games on a PC is nice, but doesn’t really bring the arcade feel back, the purpose of a MAME project is to build an arcade cabinet with a PC inside or convert an existing one so it can run MAME.
I study Computer Science and because I have never done any real woodworking, it seemed a logical decision to go for the second option. So I went out hunting for a cheap cabinet. The condition it was in wasn’t really a big deal, since I was planning to convert it anyway.
So this is where the story begins: I got extremely lucky. I got this cabinet for free.
Cabinet overview
And I will tell you why I was lucky: this cabinet is in a really good condition. Coin mechanisms, the speaker, the monitor and even a glass covering plate are still in place.
According to the previous owner, the cabinet was in a playable condition before he removed the PCB, so all mentioned parts should be functional.
On this picture (and also on the other ones in this post), you can see the cabinet in the state in which I acquired it, which means: rather dirty for not being used for years. A decent cleanup will be my first move towards it.
I will now give a quick tour around the cabinet.
First of all, the side art, which is in a pretty good shape. Better than I expected. Originally, I was planning to completely repaint the cabinet and put some new artwork on it, but seeing the good condition of the current artwork, just leaving the cabinet like that would also be an option.
Side art
Nonetheless, I find the current artwork kind of ugly and my current plans are still to completely redesign the looks of the cabinet.
Also, the cabinet is a bid damaged near the bottom. Sadly this happened while transporting it to my home. I still got the pieces of wood that broke off and this should be no big problem to repair.
Cabinet damage
The next shot gives you an impression of dirtiness. It also shows the horrible layout of the control panel. The joysticks feel very cheap and the push buttons are very impractical to use. Only both start buttons feel great, but still don’t look that good.
Control panel and a lot of dust
As a result, I will probably remove the control panel entirely and redesign it from scratch.
The coin door that is mounted in the cabinet feels cheap, has 3 slots (with one blocked) and has the lock removed. But hey, I won’t complain. I have a coin door.
The cash door underneath looks and feels genuine, has a lock, but needs some touching up here and there.
Coin and cash door
The coin slots got labels of “20 Belgian Francs”, a currency that was replaced by the Euro in 2002. It does bring back the old feeling of arcade machines using this coin as a credit when I was a kid. 20 Belgian Francs is about 0,5 euros.
Time to open up the cabinet and take a look of what’s inside, starting with the coin door. There are two “Coin Comparitor”, model CC-40 mounted inside, with a comparing coin of 20 Belgian Francs still in place in either of them. This is a great discovery, since they are both rather expensive components.
Coin mechanisms
Haven’t been able to test them yet, but they look in working order to me. The left one on the picture (with yellow label) has a broken coin reject switch, but that might be an easy fix. It also had a candy bar wrapping in the coin reject box.
When I took a look inside the cabinet, I noticed that the hole in the wood where the coins fall through, in the cash box, have been enlarged manually (not visible on the next picture). This was a first indication that some modifications have been made to the cabinet, altering it from its original state.
Cash box
The cash box is still there and has a nice little drawer that looks and feels genuine.
Now it’s time to open the back door and take a closer look at what’s still inside. On the inner side of the back door is a manual taped for the game Three Wonders and an explanation of the JAMMA standard. My guess is that this game was originally installed in this cabinet.
Back door with "Three Wonders" manual
Taking a look inside the cabinet, you can see that, although the PCB has been removed, the monitor, the power supply and all wiring are still there. The monitor, speaker and marquee light are still connected to the power supply.
Inside of cabinet
Everything looks quite genuine, but I did notice something strange. Although the “Three Wonders” manual mentioned a JAMMA standard and the cabinet has a lot of typical JAMMA properties (2 joysticks, 3 buttons per player, 2 coin slots and mono sound), a regular 56-pin JAMMA connector is nowhere to be seen.
Non-JAMMA wiring
Wiring coming from both player controls, the coin mechanisms, the monitor and the speaker, they are all provided via a separate connector. My guess is that “Three Wonders” probably wasn’t the last game that got installed in this cabinet. It must have been rewired to support some other non-JAMMA PCB. Another indication for the fact that this cabinet must have been converted at least once is the holes and unused cable wraps that can be found against the inner sides.
Taking a closer look at the monitor from the inside, I noticed it’s a 20″ beauty made by Hantarex. I’m so hoping that it isn’t broken!
Hantarex marking
I’m not familiar with arcade monitors, and as the sticker on the side with type and production date isn’t where it should be anymore, I haven’t been able to identify the model or the age of the monitor.
The control panel can open nicely. Since I’m planning to redesign it anyway, it doesn’t need any more attention. I just include this picture as a reference. Also, I found out that the right joystick has a broken microswitch.
Inside of control panel
OK, since some components are still connected to the power supply, I decided to just power it on.
First thing to notice is that the marquee lights up beautifully. After all these years, the light in the back of it still works. Although that really has to be the cheapest component, it made me smile to see it lighting up. 
Also, more exiting: the monitor clearly powers up. It produces a high-pitched sound, like televisions typically do. When powering down, a decharing flash can clearly be seen on the screen. This is very promising!
The marquee is still alive!
After I had removed the marquee to take some measurements of it, I decided to take a picture of the cabinet, just as a reference.
Cabinet with marquee and covering glass removed
On this picture, also the covering glass in front of the monitor has been removed and you can clearly see that no monitor bezel is mounted. I will have to make one myself. Also, the mono speaker is clearly visible.
Well that’s it for now. What are my plans for this cabinet? Well, to be honest: I’m not really sure about that. I’m thinking about restoring it to the JAMMA standard and add a JAMMA-to-MAME conversion, or just converting it to MAME can also be an option.
I’ll be doing some research and brainstorming about that. The next job is to clean it up nicely. Check back for updates soon!
: Matig
Voorbije donderdag werd Yves Leterme opgenomen in het ziekenhuis. Toen het 19-uur journaal op één (makkelijk herkenbaar aan de rode kleur en de gigantische 7 op de achtergrond) begon, was er nog niets over zijn toestand bekend. Tien minuten later, toen men nog over hetzelfde onderwerp bezig was, was er nog steeds niets bekend. Vier volwaardige items had men er nochthans voor over: het onderwerp zelf (om te zeggen dat men niet weet wat er met onze Yves aan de hand is), een reporter ter plaatse (die niets wist over de toestand van Leterme), een terugblik op de voorbije onderhandelingsperiode (want dat zou misschien wel eens de oorzaak kunnen zijn) en als kers op de taart een interview met “de man in de straat” uit Ieper (die ook niets wist, maar wel vermoedde dat de voorbije onderhandelingsperiode wel eens de oorzaak zou kunnen zijn).
