Building my first "PC Case"

[LordCyrus]

So next week, Spring Break, instead of going down to the hott zones and scoping out the babes, I'm going to stay home with my little brother (just turned 13 and he's more of a modder than me!) and convert a bunch of old computer parts and a few pieces of wood into a bartop arcade cab. Using the latest in technology (Celeron 400 or PIII something, Rage Pro 128, and a whopping 128-256MB of RAM!!) we will attempt to reconstruct one of the worlds greatest and, sadly, lost treasures.

I'll provide pictures, more detailed specs as to what goes in the machine, and so on as I decide and begin to construct it.

Stay tuned ^^.

[sushrukh]

We r waiting for that head turner.

[LordCyrus]

After doing a little bit of searching and looting from a few old, dead machines I have lying around, this looks to be the final specs.


Intel D815EEA
Celeron 900 MHz
128Mb PC100 SDRAM
ATI Rage 128 Pro
Seagate 10.2GB 5400RPM IDE Drive
15" Monitor I stole from work
$5 speakers (thanks Newegg! :D)


I think that's all of them. To make the controllers, I'll be using the X-Gaming 'Arcade Bundle,' which is 2 joysticks and 20 buttons, that are rigged up to two gutted USB controllers.

I'll be running Windows XP (I think, I may go with 98.. any input on that?) and emulating all of my arcade games through MAME32.

[LordCyrus]

Tomorrow I start the first day of actual construction. I'm hoping to make this mod in under 2-3 days time. I will be heading out to Home Depot or Lowes, as well as Radioshack, to pick up the first set of supplies and begin construction. I think I will begin the construction starting with the control deck.

I will be incorporating many buttons into this project (what arcade machine isn't complete without a bunch of 'em?) Each player will have a white Player 1/2 button and 6 black buttons used for gameplay. I may opt to add two buttons, one on each side of the cab, to act as flippers if I ever were to emulate a pinball machine. I also plan to have another button, hidden behind the control deck, that acts as the power button to the machine.

Instead of opting for an I-PAC, I will be using two incredibly cheap USB joypads I picked up from eBay that I will gut and solder to in order to get everything to work.

Well, that's it for an update. Expect lots of fun things tomorrow night, possibly even pictures (I do plan on documenting this whole experience, but it's a matter of will I be lazy and not upload them :P)

[stlava]

I'm sure a good amount of "testing" will have to go into the projects ;-). But good luck with that it sounds like a fun project and its good for you guys to spend time together.

[LordCyrus]

Well, due to some unforeseen events (my father getting kidney stones out of no where) I didn't get as much done as I had anticipated. We were able to get the wiring done for both of the game pads done and begin work on the case (cut a few pieces, but they still need to be sanded down, painted, assembled, etc.)

The joypads came along very well. We are using 7 buttons of each joypad, all of which work, and the direction pads also work with the joystick (8 direction.)

I'll post pictures later tonight.

[LordCyrus]

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1302/img0221ct8.jpg
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/8907/img0224qa5.jpg
http://img483.imageshack.us/img483/3369/img0226wz4.jpg

Nothing too special just yet. I'll try to take a picture of the controller with all of the wires attached tomorrow (it isn't pretty to say the least) but for now, that is all.

[LordCyrus]

Sorry for the lack of updates. The machine is roughly 95% done (I just need to drill a few more holes) but it has been 'completed' as of March 17th. I will be posting plenty of pictures and other details as soon as I can find the time.