Disco's MAME Project

Stage 30: First Blood

2006-12-08T16:34:00.000-04:00

Myself, my roomate Colin and my pal Stan decided to take in the cinema classic that is Rambo: First Blood Part III recently. The movie wasn't as amazing as I recalled it being back in 1988 when I was a mere boy of 12, but it definitely had it's share of wild action and absurd cliches.

After the movie, we reminisced a bit about the old Rambo NES video game and the arcade shooter based on Rambo III. If only there was some way to play these classics ...

... which of course there is, thanks to my MAME cab!

We fired up the NES classic, which was a lot more like Zelda than I remembered it being. He kills a lot of snakes, spiders and weird ghosty shit and not too many soldiers, which was strange. Got tired of that pretty quick and we moved onto Rambo III the arcade game, which was very much like Cabal and G.I. Joe in its design (ie, you shot and killed a never-ending stream of people and occasionally fought tanks).

Fun times for a while, especially since Stan and I were pretty fucking loaded at this point on gin and Jack Daniels. The whole episode really marked what owning and stocking the MAME machine was all about - being able to play any game you could think of whenever you wanted, and reliving old times while you do it.

Stage 29: Peck, Peck, Peck

2006-12-04T19:41:00.000-04:00

Been a slow time for me and my MAME the last little while - more a reflection on my laziness than me not having opportunities to work with it, really.

Still, I recently began a short spell of work on the thing and it's slowly but surely taking form as I peck away at the myriad little chores that need doing. Recent changes include:

* Fixed the Maximus Arcade front end to properly work with the X-Arcade joystick and boot up straight from launch. From startup to the main menu is only a 20-25 second wait now, a time I hope to shave down once I dig into the registry and bypass Windows Explorer altogether.

* Straightened out some of the MAME and MA inputs. A lot of the joystick commands were lost as I did testing and formatting via the keyboard instead of the sticks. Took some doing, but MAME and MA seem to have their keys where they should be. I still need to sort the NES, Sega Master System, Daphne, Intellivision & Atari commands so the joystick works as it should, but it's getting there.

* Finished sorting the massive pile of Sega Genesis games/snapshots/movies. That took much longer than I thought, but I devised a simple yet effective way to quickly line up the files so I could archive them and eventually transfer them to the MAME PC. The Super NES and Virtual Pinball folders still await me, as do the Coleco files I got off my brother-in-MAME Dwayne. Hopefully it won't be the mind-numbing siege that these Genesis files were.

* Cleaned up the fucking disaster area that was the spare room, aka, the Labratory. There was a lot of shit in that room that didn't need to be, and once I tossed it out and moved junk like my air conditioner and VHS movies somewhere else, it really opened the room up. Now friends of mine can come over and play MAME without having to crawl over chairs and poker tables. And the psychological effects are greater than I had anticipated - I actually find myself looking forward to spending time in that room with the machine instead of dreading it. Whee!

Not giant leaps, but a series of small steps that are indeed bringing this project closer and closer to home. Up next on my agenda:

* Sorting Super NES/Virtual Pinball/Coleco files
* Continue to hone MA interface to make it quicker & easier to use
* Refining game lists to make sure all games work
* Start getting cabinet ready for the marquee & bezel work

Hopefully I can get a lot of this done before my Xmas party on Dec. 23rd, which would be an excellent time to showcase to my friends what a massive video game nerd I am (if they are comepletely without a clue and have not already deduced this from the preponderance of game consoles in my living room).

Stage 28: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the MAME ...

2006-11-21T17:39:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I even amaze myself:

Having finally procured the IDE to SATA Hard Drive Converter I needed to make my new 200GB HDD speak to my motherboard for my non-MAME desktop computer, I made an amusing discovery upon cracking open my case for the umpteenth time in this project:

My ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard which is incapable of supporting SATA HDDs is in fact NOT an ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard at all. I realized this about 20 seconds into attaching the Converter when I noticed two small ports cryptically marked "SATA1" and "SATA2" off to the left of the IDE ports. Surely I had not overlooked these damned things on nearly a dozen previous occasions inside the case?

After connecting the SATA HDD to these ports, the answer was a most decidedly "yes I had". The HDD worked fine, these were indeed SATA ports and now I have a $15 IDE to SATA Converter collecting dust in a drawer.

Un-fucking-believable, not only because I had somehow not seen these two in-plain-view SATA ports on the countless instances I had cracked open the case of this machine in recent weeks, but also because I had chosen to verify that the ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard did not support SATA several times on the internet instead actually, you know, LOOKING at the damned board in my machine. Sigh.

How'd This Happen?: My best guess is that back about a year ago when I took my board into the shop because the USB ports weren't working, they good folks at Mysterybyte Computers gave me a loaner board which I promptly fried while flashing the BIOS without knowing what I was doing (not recommended, BTW). Apparently my original board was FUBAR so they replaced it with a new board which was "exactly the same" as my old one.

This term clearly means something different than what I think it does, because the board in my main PC is definitely not an ECS K7S5A Pro board. I have no idea what kind of board it is, but not only does it have the SATA ports that it shouldn't, it's currently exceeding its alleged maximum 1GB RAM capacity by 512MB since I put an extra stick in there during the Great Computer Swap after I got Ward's machine. So whatever is in my PC, it's better than what I thought it was. Woo woo!

I think I'll run some diagnostics when I get home and see what in blazes I actually have running on that damned machine. Knowing, as they say, is half the battle.

Update: Apparently I'm rocking an ASUS K8N motherboard in my PC instead of that ECS piece of crap I thought I had. It's not a hell of a lot better, but it's defintely a small step up. Huzzah for free hardware upgrades!

Stage 27: Everything Old Is New Again

2006-10-24T16:42:00.000-03:00

After careful deliberations over the weekend (aided in no small part by my heroic intake of wine and Ciclon Rum Drink on Saturday night), I finally came to a decision re: my HDD & desktop setup dilemma:

My old PC shall remain as my desktop unit and Ward's PC shall fulfill its original purpose and find its way into the MAME cabinet. The RAM shall be split 1.5 GB per machine, and the 250GB HDD will be assimilated into my old PC via this snazzy IDE to SATA Hard Drive Converter I found for a mere $15 on eBay:

The 80GB HDD will once again migrate out of my old PC and into Ward's machine, where it will hopefully lead a long and fruitful life. Heck, I might even add the 30GB HDD from the piece of shit PC currently serving as the MAME PC as a 2nd HDD.

So once again I play the waiting game as I pass the time until this newest piece of hardware shows up at my door. It probably won't be here till next week sometime, so I continue my slow march through the hundreds and hundreds of Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo and Virtual Pinball games that need to be synched up - I'm at the "O" section in the Genesis folder now. Yay!

Stage 26: Decisions, Decisions

2006-10-20T17:23:00.000-03:00

I don't know what it is about me and tech-toys, but I certainly enjoy the prospect of spending my hard earned (well, earned, anyways) money on them.

Anyhoo - I have once again found myself wondering which iteration of the 2.5 PCs I now own will find its way into the MAME cab and which one will be living on my desktop as my actual PC.

Having cloned my old 80GB IDE HDD to the new 250GB SATA one, I totally formatted the old one and reinstalled Windows fresh. Waving a magic wand to make that annoying Microsoft Validation thing go away (*ahem*), I began to diligently put my massive collection of games onto the virgin platform and buckle down to get this thing ready to put into the MAME.

But soon I came to realize that for all it's fanciness and cool new super-quiet case, my old PC was still markedly more powerful than the one I got off Ward.

Not by a lot, but after some benchmarking the differences were signifigant enough for me to think that the benefits of 2GB of RAM in Ward's PC vs. the max 1.5GB I could have in my original PC was not worth the slower CPU (my 2.4 gHz vs. Ward's 2.01 gHz) nor the seemingly slower graphics card I had (my Radeon 9600 XT 128 MB vs. Ward's ATI Radeon X1300 PRO PCIe 256 MB). It's amazing the difference you can find in reality vs. the differences you see on paper, heh!

This leaves me with the following choices:

a) Continue with current plan.
My old PC will go into the MAME and the one I got off Ward will be my new desktop computer.

b) Get an IDE to SATA Converter and swap the HDDs.
My old PC (with some of Ward's RAM & the 250GB SATA HDD) would remain on my desk and Ward's PC (with the 80GB IDE HDD) would go into the MAME. Converters cost around $20-35, so this isn't such a bad idea, moneywise. Unlike ....

c) Buy new IDE HDD and don't switch at all.
A new 250GB (or more) HDD for my old PC, which would remain my desktop computer with the extra RAM mentioned above and the now extra 80GB IDE HDD installed as a 2nd drive. Ward's machine would go into the MAME with a massive 250GB SATA HDD loaded with the MAME stuff.

I have to confess to being torn between options B & C. It's not like I play a ton of PC games or anything on my PC as it is, but the idea of having a more powerful PC in the cab dedicated to playing 20 year old arcade games doesn't sit well with me.

So I guess the choice now is as follows: $35 for an IDA-SATA converter or $100 for a new IDE HDD? The difference sounds like a lot of money, but for the extra $60 I could get a hell of a lot more space and a lot less hassle. But do I really need all that space? Hrmmmmm ...

Until I decide, I am continuing to sort through the massive pile of games and prepare them for their final destination. I have all the Intellivision, MAME, Atari, NES, Daphne and Sega Master System games sorted and in sync with their screenshots and preview movies.

I still have to go through the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo folders, and it's slow going indeed. Last night alone I found over 230 duplicate snaps/movies in the Genesis folder! A long haul now, but once everything is setup I can copy them all to DVDs for future reference and won't have to worry about this kind of crap ever again.

Stage 25: The Ol' Switcheroo

2006-10-16T16:15:00.000-03:00

I arose Saturday rather hungover thanks to my pals Lynn, Louise, Colette and Sarah (yeah, I hang with tha ladiez, yo) with full intention on getting Ward's PC in shape to replace my PC, with my PC in shape to replace the MAME PC. The Ol' Switcheroo was in full effect.

But a problem quickly arose: Ward's Motherboard was PCIe and my old one was AGP. What this meant was that none of the three (count 'em: three) AGP video cards I had laying around would work on this bastard. Should have seen that coming.

Compounding this problem: My old motherboard won't support Serial ATA harddrives, which naturally the new 200GB drive was. Ward's machine supports both Serial ATA and IDE harddrives like my old harddrive, but without a PCIe video card I couldn't even begin my plan to clone my old harddrive onto the new one. Argh!

The solution came two unexpected sources: The provincial government of Nova Scotia's recent decision to rid the provice of their absurdly antiquated Sunday shopping restrictions and the unexpected arrival of my lovely and talented girlfriend Holly at my place with a set of wheels borrowed from her employer.

After a few calls to local computer shops reveal that not all nerd-infested businesses were eager to jump on the Sunday shopping bandwagon just yet, Holly suggested I try Futureshop and they were indeed open. A quick jaunt to Bayers Lake and 40 mins later, I was back in my house with a brand new ATI Radeon X1300 PRO PCIe video card. It was a little pricier than I wanted, but it should fill the gap in my regular PC needs until I finally make the switch to Dual Core or something a year or two down the road.

So I began the furious disassembling and reassembling of my old PC and Ward's PC on my living room table, much to the delight of my roomate Colin. There was a comical amount of the following procedure:

1) Put one of the computers on living room table and remove case
2) Fiddle around inside with screwdriver and headlamp on head
3) Reattach case and reinstall on desk
4) Turn on PC and discover something is wrong
5) Scratch head, groan, and then return to Step 1

I finally bumbled through some of my obvious mistakes ("Hrm, this thing marked 'POWER FOR MOTHERBOARD' might be important ...") and got both machines back to basic running states.

Using a neat program called Acronis Migrate Easy, I was able to take my old HDD and clone it onto the new HDD with little difficulty. This immediately made my legitimate copy of Windows very suspicious and I was soon innundated with demands that I verify my ownership of the disc. Looks like someone will be doing some pirating in the not so distant future. Yahar.

But I soon hit another wall - Ward, likely in a hurry to dump me out of his car with a defective PC and peel away with the money, neglected to give me the drivers disc for his motherboard, which meant I was unable to get the Ethernet Card (aka, the Internet) or the Sound Card working properly.

So I focused the remainder of my day once again prepping my files for the final MAME experience. I managed to rename and sort all the Intellivision files and got through about 250 of the 750 Sega Genesis games before my eyes began to fail me.

Ward has promised to deliver the CD unto me tonight, so hopefully I can get even further in this process soon. As I had oft said, I am keen on wrapping up the software/hardware end of things so I can focus on making my cabinet look the role. I guess we'll see how the week goes.

Stage 24: The Brain Is Here

2006-10-13T15:56:00.000-03:00

After some time off from thinking about this thing (and shoving turkey into my face), I am preparing to dive back into action on my mostly functional cab. Thanks in part to his generosity and willingness to take my hard earned cash from me, I am now in possession of Mike Ward's old PC.

It's a beast of a case - it looks like the that giant fucking black thing from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm hoping to crack it open this weekend and peer inside to see what my $425 bought me.

Possible Ideas

* Swap out the 200GB harddrive for the 80GB harddrive on my current pc.
I don't know if I need so much space for the MAME, but my porno collection does indeed runneth over. I don't think it's hard to clone my current HD onto the new one, but maybe it is. Hrm.

* Take 1GB RAM out of this beast and supplement my actual PC's current 1GB RAM setup.
Same reasons, different technologies involved. I don't know if I need 2GB of RAM to run these MAME games - the speed problems are usually based in the processor speed, not the RAM.

* Buy new video card for my real PC and put my current video card into the MAME.
I've been jonesing for a new video card for PC games lately anyways, and since my alternative is to strip out the crappy TV-Out beater card currently in the old MAME PC and put it in the new one, I can see this one happening. The video card in my PC has more memory and a TV-Out so it would work just fine.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what I decide to do, hopefully between my poker tourney on Saturday and the hangover that will invariably follow on Sunday I can get some shit done on this. I am keen on finalizing the software and hardware aspects so I can move onto cosmetics. I'm just so vain.

Stage 23: When It Comes to Cabinet Power, You Must Strip It

2006-10-03T18:06:00.000-03:00

Bonus points to all of you who sang the title of this post in your head. In a world of confusion and uncertainty, one thing remains clear: we need more DEVO.

But my title is both acoustically pleasing and versatile: I recently stumbled across something that will help me solve my dilemma as to how to properly power the cabinet and all it's associated devices.

In its current semi-functional state, the cabinet takes a few moments to turn on. There's the actual MAME PC, the monitor, the speakers and eventually the marquee lamp and likely some extra fans in the base of the structure. That's a lot of switching on to do, and obviously doing it all in one fell swoop would be preferred.

Enter The SmartStrip, a powerbar that appears uniquely tailored for just my needs.

The SmartStrip is like your average powerbar: surge protection, angled-plug, spaced outlets, etc. But with one important difference - the Control Outlet.

What the Control Outlet does is simple yet important: when something that is plugged into the Control Outlet is turned on, the SmartStrip delivers power to all the other outlets and anything that is plugged into them.

So if I have all my gear plugged into this bad boy and have my PC plugged into the Control Outlet, when I turn my PC on everything else will spring to life, presuming it was all left in an "on" state, which clearly I will ensure.

Once this is all in place, the next step will be to find a way to start up my PC at a distance, likely via something like the Ignition 1 PC Power Switch, although this particular model appears to be in large demand and short supply.

Still if there's one thing the Interweb has taught me (outside of the fact that it's comprised mainly of a series of tubes) is that if it exists I can likely find it online for sale. Or maybe I'll just get funky and wire up some extension to my existing power switch. Or ask someone who knows how to do this for me.

The SmartStrip has been ordered and is apparently winging its way towards me from Pennsylvania or wherever. Maybe when it gets here I will finally summon the motivation to rewire the marquee light?

Stage 22: Weekend Update

2006-10-02T17:36:00.001-03:00

Not surprisingly, I failed in performing any of the tasks I had thought about doing this weekend. I blame the Internet, the return of swing music and the fact that it was a nice day on Saturday and my girlfriend had access to a car. It's hard to turn down a nice day trip with lines like "but I have to research arcade cabinet designs".

Anyways, I did manage to pour a solid five hours into sorting out ROMs and compiling screenshots for my Atari 2600 and NES collections. You see, in order for the ROM and screenshot and movie preview to line-up in my Maximus Arcade front-end, the file names all have to be identical. This means no extra spaces, things capped that shouldn't be capped, version info in brackets, etc., etc.

Not surprisingly, since I gathered these games, movies and screengrabs from places all over the web, not everything was in sync. So this meant a TON of arduous renaming and double-checking of hundreds and hundreds of files. This was about as fun as being kicked in the mouth, but once done it shouldn't have to be done anymore. I'm keen on archiving all these things onto DVDs so I can clear them off my main PC and I want to make sure everything is hunky dory before I burn them off.

So I did get some stuff done afterall. I guess it wasn't a TOTAL waste of a weekend, but the daunting task of lining-up all the ROM/snaps/movies for the MAME, Genesis, SNES, Master System and Intellivision games is looming large in my mind. Sigh.

Stage 21: Weekend Chores

2006-09-29T17:31:00.000-03:00

Since I am in limbo while the bastards at Dell continue to drag their heels in shipping Mike Ward his new computer (and thus preventing me from seizing his old one for my cabinet), I have spent the last little while considering a few other things that need doing on my machine. Here's a list of some things I'm going to try and tackle this weekend in-between ribs and drinking:

1) Rewire marquee light
An easy affair, just needs to be spliced back onto a regulation power cord. That said, if I do manage to electrocute myself on Saturday, it's been a pleasure.

2) Start thinking about bezel design & construction
Now that I've settled upon a monitor, I can start thinking about the bezel. For those of you in the dark, the bezel is the covering that extends around the monitor. In the olden arcade days, it was covered with campy art and game instructions, kind of like this old-school Burger Time one:

I'm thinking for my cabinet, I will start basic - a nice basic black construction, with a sheet of cut plexiglass over the front to protect the comupter monitor from pawing by my grubby little friends. I can always add some artwork (or more likely some instructions) on it later

3) Start thinking about a new marquee design
As in love with the TETRIS thing that the cabinet's previous owner clearly printed off his home PC sometime in 1987, my machine definitely needs some new loving. Fortunately, there's a whole website devoted to just such a thing over at the aptly named MameMarquees.net. Not sure which one I'm going for yet, but here's some ones I am leaning towards:

I really dig the crisp, sleek loof of the first two, but I have to admit having a soft-spot for the Tron-inspired third one as well. There's loads of other choices, and since I know so many artist-types, I am sure I could get a nice one done for me on the sly. I guess we'll wait and see.

Anyways, this should get me through the weekend. I'm definitely jonesing to get the software off my real PC and onto the MAME PC ASAP. Argh!

Stage 20: Monitoring the Situation

2006-09-25T15:57:00.000-03:00

Saturday was indeed an eventful day around Halifax - I managed to actually get up and to PC Medic before the huge crush of Rolling Stones fans swarmed the Halifax Common and its surrounding neighborhoods which include my secret lair on Allan Street withiin its ranks.

After waiting a spell for some attention from the gabby clerk on the phone, I got to peek at the used 19" CRT monitor I had asked to be put aside for me. It was indeed a huge beast, but didn't seem to have as much screen size as I had imagined in my head. Maybe it was all the other used CRT monitors on the shelves around it, but I was definitely having second thoughts about laying out $100 for this thing.

After dutifully measuring the monitor and stroking my non-existent beard for a while, I finally agreed to take it. After explaining what I was using it for, some of the tech guys overheard me and hauled me into their office to check out their friend's arcade project website. I never got the URL, but this guy had clearly out a lot of work into his machine. He appeared to have functional coin-doors as well - I made a mental note to contact these dudes once I was at that stage. Muah ha ha.

Hailing a cab, I wrestled this monster monitor home and with some time to spare before I rocked out at the concert down the road, I hauled the TV out of the cabinet and took some comparison photos:

Here's a shot of my old 17" monitor on the left and the new 19" monitor on the right. You can definitely see the difference when these things are side by side.

Here's a shot of the cheap-ass TV that was in the cabinet on the left and the 19" monitor on the right. The monitor is clearly much smaller than the TV in screen size (approx. 1.5" smaller diagonal), but I was hoping the monitor's much clearer picture would make up for it. Presuming that this thing even fit into the cabinet at all.

Lucky for me, it did indeed fit like a glove, although I had pry off the rotational stand on the bottom of the monitor and unmount the joysticks in order to cram this thing into place. The flatter front surface area and rear VGA input will defintely make crafting the bezel an easier affair down the road. Of course, now I have a spare, almost new 19" TV kicking around. Hrm.

Firing up the cab and loading in some games, the resolution difference was amazing. The Maximus Arcade menu was crystal clear, and the details surrounding some of the figures in Street Fighter Turbo 2: Hyper Fighting, 1942 and Donkey Kong Jr. were great. Having seen this transformation from the functional but somewhat muddied figures the TV provided, I immediately felt 100x better about this investment. Yay!

So now I move onto my next task: Getting the new PC gear from that slacker Mike Ward.

Those Magnificent Bastards

2006-09-22T15:27:00.000-03:00

Came across this while cruising my usual vidya game websites and blogs:The X-Arcade Tankstick

Yeah, it's a honking big Dual Joystick just like the one currently in my MAME cabinet, but it's much wider, heavier and has a trackball in the middle for playing games like Golden Tee Golf, Centipede, Missile Command and more.

Another shot, showing the size difference between this new beheomoth and my current setup:

Tankstick dimensions: 29.5" W x 13" L x 20lbs weight
Dual Joystick dimensions: 24.25" W x 11.25" L x 12lbs weight

That things is heavy as shit compared to my current stick. Apparently it also has an extra set of pinball buttons on each side, meaning a total of two buttons on the left and two on the right:
My Current Inkling: At $199.99 US, this thing is not cheap. Plus I'd be concerned about making this thing fit into my current setup, as it would almost certainly mean doing some cutting into the frame. On the other hand, I would like a trackball for my machine, and this would clearly be the easiest way to do it.

I'm gonna have to take some measurements and think about it. Right now, this would clearly rank as such on my Things To Do List for the machine:

1 - Get new monitor for machine (hopefully this Saturday)
2 - Get new PC for machine from Mike Ward (hopefully next week)
3 - Spend some $$$ making my machine look purdy (marquee, bezel, sanding, etc)
4 - Investigate this new bejesus controller of doom.
5 - Play the shit out of my machine.

Should make for an interesting dilemma. BTW, WTF is up with the name "Tankstick"? Man alive.

Stage 19: Cartoon Madness

2006-09-21T16:48:00.000-03:00

I spent a decent couple of hours last night sorting through a massive 15.4GB torrent I had downloaded from a Top Secret Emulator Site. The torrent was a collection of Laser Disc arcade games, and to say this was a rare find would be the understatement of the year.

Laser disc games use the Daphne emulator instead of MAME. The idea is the same, but Daphne (named after the damsel in distress in Dragon's Lair) is made especially for these huge laser disc packs (some games are over 1.5GB in size), or actual laser discs if you happen to have them.

Besides what I would consider the "Big Three" of laser disc games, there were quite a few others I had never heard of. My thanks to The Dragon's Lair Project for their fine help in providing the links and images you will find in this section - for anyone trying to get laser disc games or emulators running, this is the place to do it.

** Working Games **

Dragon's Lair

Easily the most famous laser disc game ever created. Like many games that followed, players use the joystick to "guide" Dirk through various sticky situations. Control consisted of tapping the joystick in the right direction or hitting the massive "Sword" button at the right instance, else Dirk would face certain death. There was a Dragon's Lair cabinet at one of the gas stations in Parrsboro when I was a kid, and I certainly dumped my fair share of quarters into it. A genuine classic.

Space Ace

Another famous laser disc title, this game was almost a direct spinoff of Dragon's Lair, only set in the future and names changed. The controls and actions were the same, but this one had a choice for skill levels and was a little more comprehensible as a title. You could also choose several paths to follow in the game, which at the time was very cool. The campy voice acting in this title is amazing.

Cliff Hanger

The third in what I call the "big three" of laser disc games. This one was a bit of a departure, as the animation and gameplay were much different. The manga influence is obvious, and instead of a "Sword" or "Blaster" button, players had "Hands" and "Feet" action buttons, which had to be pressed at the right time to make the protagonist use his hands and feet accordingly. Surprisingly, there was one of these cabinets at the short-lived and super seedy arcade that was also in Parrsboro - man, for a miniscule town on the north shore of Nova Scotia, that joint sure did have some cool arcade games.

Badlands

I had never seen this or any other of the games to follow until I sifted through this downloaded torrent. As near as I can tell, the gameplay and arcade interface consisted of a single giant red button marked "SHOOT". That's right, no joysticks. You basically follow the story along and fire off your gun at the right moment. Sounds kind of boring, but still very cool in a kitchy way.

Bega's Battle

This is the first laser disc/8-bit hybrid I ever came across. It mixed animated video backgrounds with overlaid 8-bit rendered sprites to form a strange mishmash of gaming types. Trippy gameplay to say the least.

Esh's Aurunmilla

This strange game with the stranger name appears to be a 100% shameless clone of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace combined. It has some guy named Don Davis flying a spaceship around, them boarding some asteroid to kill things with a sword. You can literally smell the '80s cheese coming off this title - the main character's voice is outstandingly terrible.

M.A.C.H. 3

As the name would suggest, this is a fighter combat title. It's a combination of live footage used as backgrounds with 8-bit sprites used as in-game objects, kind of like Bega's Battle. The plane looks a lot like the one from After Burner, so I am thinking they literally stole the model for it and used it in this game. Nice.

Road Blaster

It took all my cunning to get this game running (hey, that rhymes!), but it might have been worth it. Another combo game with real footage interspliced with computer generated objects, the purpose of this game appears to be to hurtle down a road and blast the crap out of things that get in your way. I'll need more time with this to pass further judgement, but so far it looks cool.

Super Don Quix-ote

Man, there's no shortage of freakin' Space Ace/Dragon's Lair clones, is there? This game is just about the exact same as those two games, only the main character appears a lot gayer and you have a porky little sidekick named Sancho. And the chick you have to save is way hotter than Daphne or Kimmy. Well, maybe not WAY hotter, but still. Gotta love the '80s babes.

Us vs. Them

I love the title - how can you not? Yet another mishmash of real footage and the best graphics 1984 could muster, the premise appears to be a jet sent out to blast the shit out of alien invaders. The gameplay seems a lot like M.A.C.H. 3, but there's more options, power-ups and an actual lifebar to track health. Fancy schmancy!

** So Close, Yet So Far Away **

Sadly, not all the games in the torrent were in working condition. A real shame, considering some of the nuggets that were in there:

Astron's Belt

Another real footage/cpu graphic montage game, the screens from this make it look like something out of a Buck Rogers blooper reel. I guess I can live without blowing up these particular alien menaces ... or CAN I?!

Freedom Fighter

As near as I can tell, outside of "the big three" this game is the most recognizable laser disc game there is. It's this close to working, and judging from the MPEG I have been delving into in my repair efforts, it looks like a pretty cool and original game. Apparently there's loads of slo-motion and freezeframe sections of the game, which is why it's so hard to emulate. Bastards!

Goal to Go

This game looks absolutely hilarious. Using footage of a real football game (a real, clearly staged for this game, football game), players have to choose plays and then hit the control stick at the right time to execute them properly. The game continues as long as players keep making first downs. This game is a ways off from working at all, but from what I can tell from the movie files within the pack, this has to be the worst laser disc footage ever conceived. So naturally I want this game to work ASAP. Whee!

Time Traveller

They had one of these machines at the Fairlanes Bowling Alley at the Halifax Shopping Centre when I was a kid. It was the world's first holographic video game, and at the time I thought it was the coolest shit I had ever seen - clearly I was delusional, but still, I wish this copy of that game came close to even remotely working. Sigh.

These are just a few of the laser disc games out there, there's loads of others I've never even heard of. Truly a relic of an era gone by, and one I am happy I'll be able to relive day after day on my arcade cabinet!

Stage 18: A View To A Kill

2006-09-19T16:41:00.000-03:00

After about a solid week of limited testing with myself and some concerned friends (aka, people who want to play video games), it's become clear that the 19" television I picked up on the cheap from Canadian Tire wasn't going to cut it in the long run.

It works fine, but the resolution is really quite terrible, a fact exacerbated by the fact that I have my 17" computer monitor running a cloned display simultaneously off to the side for doing the text-heavy setup work, and everything is a lot crisper and nicer on it. It wasn't a big deal to me, but after a couple of "wow, too bad the main screen isn't that crisp" comments, I knew I had to track down a better alternative.

After some dabbling around the usual Halifax computer shop websites, I came across a tantalizing advert for some used CRT monitors at PC Medic. After some fun emails back and forth with their drones, I learned they had a 19" ViewQuest CRT monitor that I could take off their hands for a mere $99. After learning it was BEIGE (beige being the greatest color in the history of the universe) and that it measured about the same as the TV did (and thus would fit into the cabinet) I told them to hold it and that I'd come and collect on Saturday.

So it remains to be seen if this beast will indeed fit into the cabinet, and how much a difference it will actually make. Stay tuned for details.

Stage 17: Fall Makeover

2006-09-14T14:53:00.000-03:00

Well my Maximus Arcade activation code has finally arrived! This means I can unlock the program and set about sorting and prepping the cabinet for real gameplay via the Front End! Wahoo!

But this gave me pause for thought - my current MAME PC was kind of a hunk of trash, and there are lingering doubts about its performance once I juice the crap out of it with 25GB of games and programs. Plus the HDD is only about 30GB total - if I ever wanted to expand this bastard, it'd be a pain in the arse.

Solution: Upgrade now! Muah ha ha!

I scoured various Halifax computer store websites, including Greenlyph, Century Computers, MysteryByte and PC Medic, and found a few snippets of what I actually needed. Most "upgrade kits" as they called them would set me back around $400, but would give me the new motherboard, processor, RAM increase and larger HDD that I clearly needed.

On a lark, I sent an email to some of my more tech-savvy friends to see if they might have an extra motherboard or something, and once again my nefarious poker connections have paid off.

Mike "Mental" Ward chimed in with the serendipitous news that he was about to upgrade his already fairly decent PC into something capable of destroying small cities with mere keystrokes, and was happy to broker a sale with me for exactly the components I needed.

After some terse negotiations during which the words "blowjob", "clown mask" and "magic beans" were uttered, we struck a deal for about the same $425 I was going to spend elsewhere. Yay!

Here's a Before & After breakdown:

Motherboard
Current: ECS K7S5A Pro (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 AMR, 2 SDR DIMM, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio)
New: ASUS A8N-E ATX S939 (NFORCE4 Ultra DDR PCI-E16 PCI-E4 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA RAID Sound GBLAN)

Processor
Current: AMD Duron, 1.3 GHz
New: AMD 64 3200 processor, 2.01 GHz

RAM
Current: 1 x 256 MB PC133 SDRAM
New: 4 X 512 MB PC3200 DDR400 ram

HDD
Current: Maxtor 6E030L0 (30 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
New: Western Digital WD2000JB SE (200GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Buffer Serial ATA)

Other Odds & Ends
New case & power supply, a 16 X DVD drive and some kind of "universal card reader of dubious functionality" which sounds interesting.

It will be a few weeks before I get a hold of the new gear, as Ward is waiting for his new Dell to be delivered. Once I do get them, I might pull a switcheroo and swap some parts in my main PC as well. Who knows what crazed, perverse Frankencomputer I will end up with?!

Stage 16: Brace for Impact!

2006-09-12T15:53:00.000-03:00

Stuck in a holding pattern as I await the activation of my Maximus Arcade Front End, I decided I needed to get my arcade in a more functional state for game testing and the like.

While the CPU, controls and display all work fine, the X-Arcade joystick was somewhat wobbly, as it was merely resting in the hole left vacant by the now trashed Tetris joysticks. My plan was to clamp these controls in place somehow to better resist the pulls and yanks on the joysticks from myself and over-zealous friends who would surely help me test this thing out.

I enlisted my pal Eric Miller to help me, as Eric is a knowledgable craftsman and has a decent selection of tools at his disposal. He dropped by the Labratory and after taking a few measurements (including a hilariously bad schematic drawn by yours truly), we hit the Canadian Tire around the corner for some tools and hardware.

The plan was simple: I was wary of actually drilling into the X-Arcade unit at this point, since the final design of the cabinet had not yet been decided. So we were going to attack a flat piece of wood under the contols to act as a "shelf" for the controls to sit on. This shelf would have a series of L-brackets on the outer lip to help prevent the controls from sliding forward. And two more larger L-brackets would be clamped down at the top of the controls, thus preventing the controls from tipping when leaned upon.

Of course, anytime I have money and walk into Canadian Tire I lose my mind and begin to purchase things I don't really need. So after a long time scrutinizing L-brackets and performing some imperial to metric conversions, I soon found myself with $50 worth of tools on top of the $8 in hardware we originally came to purchase, including some nice new Titanium drill bits and a dope multi-head screwdriver to replace the piece of shit that came with the tool set I had picked up months previous. Tools are fun, grunt grunt grunt.

Heading back home, we soon found a problem with the plan - both of Eric's batteries for his nifty cordless circular saw were dead as doornails. So it was back to Canadian Tire to buy a hand saw - sometimes, the basic shit is the best, it seems.

After cutting a piece of 1/2 inch plywood to fit, we soon had the shelf ready to go. We drilled a few holes and a few screws later the shelf was solid as can be, and the four brackets at the front worked like a charm. As a bonus, it could be pulled out when desired, which would surely help the refurbishing process down the line.

A couple more holes in the side and we soon had the two giant metal clamps ready to go as well. I had decided to coat the parts of the brackets that would be hugging the face of the control sticks with some rubber protectors to prevent scuffing. This threw our measurements off a little, but after some ratcheting of the bolts it was soon clear that these controls were not going anywhere in the near future. Huzzah! This wasn't the most asthetically pleasing arrangement, but it was a fine temporary measure to keep these controls rooted until I was ready for something more permanent.

So now with the controls firmly in place, I continue my quest to collect games together before installing the final version of Maximus Arcade and firing up the cabinet for real testing.

Stage 15: The Games Are Afoot

2006-09-08T16:06:00.000-03:00

Pulling together all these games has been a lot easier than I thought it would be. Thank goodness there's a dedicated community out there for this kind of thing and they're a friendly bunch indeed, willing to share ideas and software.

Here's the game tally so far. I haven't weeded out a lot of the clones (copies of a same game for another region), so these numbers may come down a little. Also, I know there's a lot more games than this for each system, but many of them are unplayable garbage or nonsensical Japanese imports. I want my system to be as decluttered with stuff nobody will ever care about as possible.

Starting from the oldest to newest:

I did own a Pong machine, but really the Atari 2600 was the first "real" video game system I ever owned. So many classic games, so little graphical power. A true legend.

Total Working Games So Far: 850

I got my first Intellivision well after the thing was out of production, but I was still transfixed by the crazy disc controller and the hilarious games. I still have one of these in real life!

Total Working Games So Far: 260

Anyone who didn't have a NES as a kid is no true video game fan. All my real video game experiences as a kid happened right here.

Total Working Games So Far: 750

I never owned a SMS personally, but lots of my friends did. The color scheme on this thing was incredible, as was the futuristic light gun. Fwzzap!

Total Working Games So Far: 410

Very influential in my formative gaming years, this was the first taste of what video games were going to be like in the future. Good times indeed.

Total Working Games So Far: 780

The system that made Sonic a star. I didn't own one of these either, but I recall thinking the graphics were actually closing in on what they were like in the arcade. How naive I was, heh.

Total Working Games So Far: 860

The king of the mountain, and the real reason I started this damned project in the first place. Being able to play actual arcade game classics without having to pour untold amounts of quarters into the machine at some scummy bowling alley - man, that would be living.

Total Working Games So Far: Over 1,300

Made most famous for the Dragon's Lair series of games, these cartoon-driven video games were uncommon but unforgettable. The sheer size of their software (600mb and up) and their relative scarcity makes these games real gems to find.

Total Working Games So Far: 3

The search for more games continues, and soon I will bear down and get to work sorting out the useless games from the great ones. Gettings screenshots and marquees for all these games should also prove an interesting challenge.

* Something Is Worth 1,000 Words *

2006-09-08T15:00:00.000-03:00

I figured now would be a good time to show off some pix of my masterpiece in its current infantile state.

A front-on shot of the beast. You can see how snugly that TV fit inside, as well as what a nice fit the X-Arcade controls were.

Another shot, slightly from the side. I am still debating what do with with the sides of the cab and the marquee in terms of art and finish. There's some wicked carved in initials and stuff on the left side of the cabinet, but I may be leaning towards sanding and refinishing the whole thing.

Another frontal shot, this time showing Street Fighter II running on the screen. I should have taken more shots of actual gameplay, but trust me when I saw that most of the games I have on there right now are running very well indeed.

A close-up from the control sticks. You can see where the TV kind of just out a little from the chassis because it's deeper than the old arcade monitor was. I'll have to figure out a way to properly fashion a riser bezel to cover up that gap.

The aforementioned front-input dilemma. This is a rough set-up pictured, but I will have to find a way to conceal this input better, as I don't want a cord sticking out of the front of my machine once I get the glass/plexiglass cover on the bezel. Will this involve me sawing into the television and doing some rewiring? God I hope not.

A shot of the absurd homemade TETRIS marquee that came with the cabinet when I bought it. The light behind this does work, I just have to rewire it to function properly. I'm still debating what will go here, but there's no shortage of nice MAME marquee artwork out there, so it will be fun picking out a colour scheme.

Stage 14: Let's Get Frontin', Y'all

2006-09-05T17:41:00.000-03:00

A quick primer for everyone on what a MAME "Front End" is:

MAME by itself can play video game ROMs via the command line. That is to say, if you wanted to play that Burger Time ROM you just "found" on the internet, you'd have to crack open the DOS prompt or Run command and type in the following:

c:\mame -btime

This fires up the game but isn't exactly user friendly, especially when you have to dig into a huge list of strangely named files everytime you want to play something.

A Front End is a program that sorts and presents your games for you in a pleasing interface so you can better navigate through your game choices straight from the arcade cabinet and without using a keyboard or mouse.

There's loads to choose from out there, so it was up to me to choose one that suited my tastes and my "vision" as to what my MAME cabinet was going to be like.

I decided I wanted something that had a strictly graphical interface to it, so that someone who had no idea how a Front End worked could walk up to my machine and root through a list of games with ease. Many Front Ends are full of massive lists of games and loads of options, which I felt might overwhelm users and detract from the arcade immersion I was going for.

I originally settled on MAMEWAH, which seemed to be what I was looking for. I had spent some time sorting files and preparing layout images, but the archaic and somewhat counterintuitive setup was a real pain in the ass. Not to mention, MAMEWAH was simply not running well on my MAME PC at all, as it seemed to crash a lot thanks to the ridiculously complicated naming structures and file protocols it uses.

After reaching the aforementioned physical breakthrough with the cabinet, I decided to explore some other options for my interface, and I'm sure glad I did.

After dallying with UltraMame, 3D Arcade, EasyMAME and ArcadeEPIC, I had yet to stumble onto anything that really sparked my interest.

Enter Maximus Arcade, a relative newcomer to the Front End scene. With a simplified configuration process, snazzy onscreen menus and graphics and a sweet 30-day fully functional trial, I knew I had found what I was looking for.

Yeah, I was actually going to pay money for a Front End, but after an hour sifting through the options and test running a few games I knew that this was miles above the rest of the pack in terms of what I wanted. This was worth the $25, although the bastards at PayPal were making it an annoying process, but that's another story.

With my Front End solution found, I could now focus on other tasks. Since this was such a snap to setup, I could now expand my intended game selection to include games other than MAME arcade classics.

If my recent drunken Intellivision/Atari experience at Drake & Speedbag's place had taught me anything, it was that old games were fun to play, regardless of platform.

With this in mind, I set about pulling together a "modest assortment" of old video games from myriad sources. My intention: to have every single video game ever sold on a North American console. Commence the hunt!

Stage 13: Labour of Love

2006-09-04T15:35:00.000-03:00

** Note: I'll try and get some photos of all this up ASAP - my digital camera is on the fritz, so I may have to resort to my cell phone camera. Meep.**

It figures it'd take me all the way till fucking Labour Day weekend to do any "real" work on this blasted contraption, but there you have it.

Sticking to my resolution re: the disposal of most of the antiquated arcade cab and monitor pieces, I spent a good deal of time on Saturday emptying the spare room (now dubbed "The Laboratory" courtesy of Speedbag) of all non-essential arcade pieces.

It was definitely a lot easier getting this shit out of the house than it was getting it in, a happenstance I attribute to the fact that everything wasn't soaking fucking wet and I wasn't nearing the edge of my sanity due to exhaustion.

As I continued to pile pieces of these two machines in front of my house, the usual funkadelic hipsters that inhabit my neighborhood were quick to arrive and poke through the rubble in search of kitchsy treasure. My new downstairs neighbor was surely pleased by the sight of a bandana-clad me dumping what looked to be the remnants of some kind of arcade explosion outside the house.

With the purging complete, I was left with the bare-bones of what I needed to get this sumbitch off the ground:

* Tetris arcade cabinet, gutted out to the hull
* X-Arcade Dual Joystick
* Beater PC to use as MAME brain
* Set of speakers to churn out sound
* Some extra wood & plastic, just in case

There was only one thing I needed now - a TV. Luckily for me, the Canadian Tire around the corner had one that was 99.9% exactly what I needed, and was a steal at under $100.

It had the curved CRT I wanted and was the size I craved, but the video inputs are int he front instead of in the rear, which will pose a cosmetic problem later but that was neither here nor there.

Arriving home with my new prize on my head, I immediately unpacked it and decided to try and "wedge" the new TV into the cab to see how it might fit once secured.

Imagine my surprise when I came to realize that the TV was a near glass-slipper fit, resting snugly and firmly on the brackets that had up until an hour ago been holding that old RCA arcade monitor. It was so nice a fit that all the plans I had been forging in my head about building a small shelf or constructing some kind of restraint system for the TV set were immediately made moot. This was a good omen indeed, given my legendary carpentry skills.

Next up was mounting the control sticks into the cab. I had spent considerable time trying to dream up a way to attack these things to the front of the cabinet without destroying the chassis or extensive woodwork.

Truly, the Arcade Gods were smiling on me at this point - the X-Arcade Dual slid directly into the hole left vacant by the now curbside Tetris controllers. There's a little bit of wiggle room on the right and left, and I had to gouge a hole in the square-frame of the cab to make room for the adapters in the back of the console, but all told this was another near perfect fit. A pair of bracket clamps is really all this would need to be firmly and securely in place, which all things considered is fucking great news.

Having completed these tasks, I finally wired in the PC (now retrofitted with the old TV-Out video card), and cranked the whole juggernaut to life. I stood back and watched as Galaga sprung to life before me on the TV. The resolution was a little fuzzy, but after some tweaking with the Video menu on the TV, I got the colors and crispness to what I though was the best this unit could offer.

Total time elapsed for the day: about five hours combined work. That sounds like a lot, but I easily spent double that just trying to make the old arcade monitors work, so really this was a great afternoon spent. Without jinxing this project, I'm literally on the homestretch now. It's a good feeling, to say the least.

Invigorated and flush with success, I moved onto my next task - fixing up the MAME Front End so that gamers could more easily navigate the game selections.

Stage 12: Deus Ex Machina

2006-08-29T15:30:00.000-03:00

After much contemplation, many cheeseburgers and successive visits from Chuck Tetreault and Ben Harnish to distract me from my MAME tasks, I finally dove back into this project in earnest about a week ago.

Having finally received the ArcadeVGA graphics card from Jolly Ol' England, I set about finding a way to splice in the VGA cord into the Tetris cabinet, if only to see how easy a process hooking my MAME PC up to an arcade monitor could be.

The Upside: The pre-hacked and labelled cord was totally worth the extra $7.00 I paid for it, as splicing the connectors to their RGB/HS/VS counterparts was pretty darned easy (and it finally justified my purchase of electrical tape made two months previous).

The Downside: Getting the PC to actually run at a resolution that was viewable in any sense of the word was a totally different story. I'll spare you the volumes of Internet geekery I subjected myself to while trying to demystify how screen resolution, horizontal and vertical refresh rates and Interlacing vs. Composite Sync display options complicate what I presumed was to be a rather easy process, but suffice to say it was nothing of the sort.

There was a breakthrough after I installed PowerStrip, a common graphics tool used my MAME afficianados for just such instances, as I finally managed to actually get to my Windows XP desktop after about 45 consectutive trips into the Task Manager to close any number of unresponsive or conflicting programs.

But the breakthrough was short-lived, as after a gruelling 4 hour session spent twiddling with knobs on the back of this ancient (and apparently no longer in production) RCA 82-26WNA monitor, it was clear that there were serious interference issues, most likely due to a poorly soldered diode or perhaps even within the tube cap itself.

So it came down to this: I *could* press forward and hope to figure out this resolution nightmare at some other point, or I could once again lay out some cash and get a television to replace this arcade monitor altogether. While not as cool as a real arcade visual experience, I knew for a fact it would be a hell of a lot easier to hook up while greatly reducing my recurring fear that these dusty and tempermental monitors would erupt into flame if left on too long.

After more deliberation, I came to a decision: despite the cost and labour involved in carting these damned monitors into Allan Street, my lack of electrical expertise and the dubious working order of the units was simply no longer to my advantage. As such, I am planning stripping the monitor out of the Tetris cab and replacing it with an old fashioned CRT television with S-Video input.

What This Means For The Project: Once that monitor is out of the cabinet, it's going to join the entirety of the massive Wrestlefest cabinet pieces and that huge Wells-Gardner monitor that may or may not work at the curb outside my house. So if you hear a news story headline along the lines of "Homeless Junk Collector Perishes In Tragic Arcade Fire", know that it is legally not my fault.

Also, this means my tenure with the ArcadeVGA card will indeed be a short one, as I plan to sell this thing on eBay to help defray the cost of a new TV, leaving me back with my out TV-Out video card. Good times.

And so we are now completely caught up and in the present tense in this project. Hopefully I am nearing the homestretch with this damned thing and I can have people over to play the finished product before there's snow on the ground.

I promise more reports (and more pictures of the actual work once my camera is fixed) in the near future.

Stage 11: Risk vs. Reward

2006-07-17T18:58:00.000-03:00

Having expertly detached the massive 25" arcade monitor from its nest within the old cabinet, I set about devising a method with which to properly use this beheomoth, pictured at right. Preliminary research about arcade monitors told me two very important things:

1) They reproduce MAME games far more faithfully than TV sets or even PC monitors. This is a good thing.

2) They have a tendency to implode, catch fire, shatter and shoot out arcs or electricity up to 25,000 volts if you don't know what you're doing with them, which of course, I don't. This is a bad thing.

This left me in a bit of a pickle, as I wasn't even sure if this bloody thing even worked and I was somewhat terrified to find out.

A small primer on arcade monitors: They look like gutted TV sets, but they are much different in reality. To find out of this thing worked or not, I (or preferably, a proxy agent working under my direction) would need to hack the power cord so it would function with the transformer and power supply currently in my possession.

Also, I'd have to find a way to actually send a proper signal to this monster, which is more complicated than just hooking it up to a PC as the signal has to be a precise (and very outdated) 15khz frequency, else you'll end up with a cooked monitor, which I think would look very much like the expert illustration seen here.

More time on the interweb later, and I had the solution: The ArcadeVGA video card, which appears to be custom-made for just the type of project I am embarking on. So I whipped out my credit card (thank you, Mr. Esquire) and ordered one post haste.

This card will make the TV-Out Video Card I already bought for this project moot, but I am sure I can find a home for it. Also, since I have a backup cabinet in the form of that Tetris-clone, if this massive monitor fails to pass muster, I can essentially dump my CPU into the Tetris cab and simply pull a switcheroo on the wiring. Wahoo!

Confident in the new monitor plan and having time to kill as I waited for the newest piece of the puzzle to arrive, I sat down with the CPU and dove into some esthetic and performance work on the brains of the MAME.

Interlude Complete

2006-07-10T20:29:00.000-03:00

Right - my three week vacation has officially ended, and my return to work coincides with a marked increase in my sobriety as well as a renewed interest in my blog. I promise to get cracking on updating this sumbitch in the coming days.

Stage 10: Hammer Time

2006-06-04T18:21:00.000-03:00

Having now fully resigned ourselves to either having this giant arcade cabinet reside permanently in our front yard or having to smash it into smaller pieces so we could drag it into the house, Cee and I tracked down a couple of hammers and began plotting our task, as the artist's rendition at left illustrates.

Cee's brother Jamie soon appeared on the scene, and was generally delighted by the state of the cabinet, the level of filth and exhaustion being exuded by his brother and myself and also by our ingenious plan to hammer the bejesus out of this thing until it obeyed our demands to become capable of being stored in the spare room.

A quick peek into the trap-door on the back of the cabinet was kind of like cavemen looking inside the ribcage of a wildebeast for the first time: things were connected every which way, some with obvious purpose, some with none. But like North American natives, we pledged to somehow use every part of this carcass before us, with nothing left to waste. Presuming, of course, we could figure out how to get it apart.

Determining where are the bolts were was a frustrating process, especially when it was determined that this thing wasn't bolted together at all. It seems the whole monstrous affair was dowled together via a series of precision drilled interlocking pegs and holes. You have to hand it to those hippies in the 80s, they sure knew how to build shit.

With the constant rain now building into pools atop the green tarp, we began to gingerly hammer the sides off this beast. Ideally we'd just knock the pegs loose and we could effortlessly disassemble it before carting it inside.

The hammering actually went fairly well all things considered. I had anticipated some catostrophic hammer blows resulting in splintered MDF, but slowly but surely we managed to loosen one entire side from the cabinet.

Numerous wires were attached in all manners of ways to both sides, the CPU and the monitor. Having no idea what any of these wires did and still unsure if the monitor even worked, we hastily detached what we could as fast as we could and began shuttling the pieces inside the house.

Blow by blow, we rained hammer strikes down upon the felled cabinet as often as the rain itself poured down upon us. Soon we had the thing down to its bare guts, and Cee took a moment to lord his glory over the now desiccated machine, as pictured at right. After some crafty use of my new ratchet set, we managed to detach the monitor from the frame and haul the last few body parts inside to relative dryness.

All told only one "boo-boo": a small tearing of MDF where the pegs refused to yield. Also, the monitor's transformer had become detached and the first worries I had about using the monolithic display began to form in my cranium.

So at last, the two cabs were both secured within Castle Allan Street, one in its native form and the other a pangeatic mass of protopieces and potential.

With all the material I would need to get the basic cabinet up and running, I was now free to do some more cerebral work: namely, researching how best to utilize this ancient 25" arcade monitor without killing myself or burning Allan Street to ashes.

Stage 9: Immovable Object vs. Irresistable Force

2006-05-18T16:40:00.000-03:00

Heh heh heh ... "Stage Nine". Everyone not in Halifax: "Huh?"

Anyways - the trip back from Cole Harbour was pretty uneventful. Cee and I were kind of concerned about how we had lashed the two cabinets into the back of the van. Meaning, because we didn't lash them up at all, we expected to hear a gargantuan "KERBOOM" and then the screams of doomed motorists as they swerved to their fiery deaths while trying to avoid the gigantic WrestleFest cabinet that was rolling down the street towards them.

Our fears were misplaced, as the cabs barely shifted during transit. Of course, this wasn't thanks to our positive chi, it was because they both weighed a bloody ton. This was to become extraordinarily clear to us within the next few minutes.

The rain started to pick up again and I made the executive decision to haul the Tetris cab into the house first. Because the Allan Street HQ has a small five step front porch, I reckoned the smaller Tetris cab would be a good primer for the big haul yet to come.

Having somehow had the foresight to scorch a path into the spare room beforehand, Cee and I managed to strap this cab to a dolly and get it into the house without resorting to crazy schemes. It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the dolly made it physically possible to pull off. My girlfriend Holly was good enough to pose with it in this really unflattering picture of the cab in it's new home in the spare bedroom.

The larger cab was a markedly different tale. Even as we wrestled this behemoth around in the van, the sheer mass of this thing was overwhelming. At one point, I found myself unexpectedly bearing the brunt of the whole thing on my forearms - while the twin "snap" noises of my ulnas being halved like twigs would have been cool to hear, I chose instead to frantically scream at Cee to help me before I was killed by this machine landing directly on my sternum. The experience left me with multiple bruises on my arms which were extremely painful, but I was able to milk them later for extra affection from Holly. Score!

After 20 minutes of zealous effort, we managed to walk this goddamned machine to the foot of the steps of the house. The tape measure I was keenly wearing on my belt like a moron had told me previous that the smallest doorway we had to traverse was 26" wide. This Wrestlefest monster was 25 1/3" wide, which for all you people out there with spatial dysphoria, means we had about the width of your index finger to wiggle this fridge-sized object inside.

Unfazed, I gallantly suggested we just "haul this bitch in", the bitch referring to the rain-soaked 65-stone object that was now leering at my neighbors from the front of my yard like a bloody Easter Island head. The attached picture really does this one some justice.

Drunk with power and possibly Powerade (2 for $2 at the Robie Street Irving!), Cee and looked at one another and nodded grimly. The time for a crazy scheme was upon us.

Summoning our inner Mythbuster, we jerryrigged a crude sled out of the moving dolly with the intention of "effortlessly" sliding this elephantine object up the slick stairs and into the front porch of my house. The following discourse was a lot like this:

Me (as Adam): "This idea is pure genius! There's no chance this will fail!"

Cee (as Jamie): "I have grave reservations about the safety and plausibility of your plan."

Me (as Adam): "Wheeeee! Arcade games here we come!"

Cee (as Jamie): "Nrrrrg." *fiddling with mustache*

And not unlike many of the myths these two bozos bust, this sounded a lot easier to pull off on paper. We literally shoved this thing with all our might only to have it lurch upwards like a drunken bear and damn near fall on us. Strike one.

But unlike baseball, there would be no other strikes. The steadily increasing rain was making this cab almost impossible to get a grip on, our shoulders and backs were already screaming in pain from the first cabinet and common sense decided to make a rare showing - if this thing fell on one of us, that person would be be killed. No Neil-esque hyperbole here, this thing would literally end a person's life if it slipped and toppled onto them. Legs and arms would be broken, ribs flattened and skulls opened if we made a mistake. This was becoming a dangerous task. We lay the cab on it's side like a wounded rhino and I threw a tarp over it to shield it from the downpour while we debated what the hell we were going to do.

At this point, an unexpected interloper made the scene - Otis Wien, former Allan Street roomate, closet redneck and general all-around good guy. He definitely had the quote of the day as he inquired as to what in blazes were were up to, uttered as I dramatically tore away the tarp to reveal the cabinet laying on it's side on the lawn:

Otis: "Holy fuck ... you KILLED an arcade machine!!"

We pleaded with him to help us drag this ponderous corpse of a cab into the house, and he begrudgingly agreed. Thankfully, that common sense I spoke of earlier was still floating in the air and we quickly abandoned all hope of actually getting this thing into the house in one piece. Discharged from his task, Otis fled.

I stood in the rain, staring at the green tarp, wondering what in blazes we were going to do. Cee was on the horn with his brother Jamie, the van had to be returned and I was beginning to feel the dull ache of my shoulders and knees beginning to swell. I thought to myself "how was I going to get this thing off the lawn into the house?"

The answer, as it almost always is for all of life's problems, was surprisingly simple - hammers, and lots of them.

Stage 8: The Pinball Wizards

2006-05-14T18:24:00.000-03:00

In case you haven't already, I suggest a thorough perusal of Classic Playfields website, which details this really cool business that I had no idea existed in my own backyard. This is really an example of a couple of guys who are doing something that they really enjoy and turning a nice little profit while they're at it.

I first made contact with Kevin over email several weeks earlier, and after the clusterfuck with U-Haul I was happy to finally meet him and check out his operation first-hand.

Kevin and his pal Mike were just about to start print work on their Centaur Project, and they were happy to give myself and Cee a guided tour of their playfield workshop, located in the basement of Kevin's immense luxury home.

I could spend a full hour detailing the coolness of the work they're doing in there, so just visit their site and take my word for it that they are printing some awesome shit down there. The investment of gear and time they've put in is really incredible, and if there are any pinball fans out there, you should really contact these guys and see if you can visit them for yourself.

Having already been tantalized by some of the wicked pictures from their website, Kevin then treated us to a tour of his awe-inspiring game room upstairs. To say this was impressive would be the understatement of the year.

I found myself agog as I stood in 1,700 square feet of checkered floor and pinball machines. The tented ceilings and wicked lighting only helped me to appreciate someone who was really, really into their craft. These pictures really don't do it justice, you have to stand in this room to truly breathe this shit in. Fantastic.

Anyways, after fifteen minutes of wondering how brilliant it would be to play groundhockey or throw a massive party in this room, we moved back to the task at hand - pickup up the two cabs Kevin had for me.

The first was an old Tetris-clone that Kevin had courteously already slapped onto a dolly for us. Cee and I managed to negotiate it onto the U-haul with a minimum of difficulty.

But the second cab was considerably heavier and larger, an old WrestleFest 3-player JAMMA cabinet. Mike suggested I back the U-Haul up to the garage where this beast was being housed and after some amusing antics I managed to slowly weave our craptacular van backwards up to the garage without ruining Kevin's lawn or smashing into the other cars in the driveway.

The four of us managed to wrestle this cab into the truck with some concerted effort. The sheer weight of this thing was incredible, and I began to have concerns about how exactly myself and Cee were going to lug this thing in the front door of Allan Street by ourselves - concerns that, unbeknownst to me, Cee was harbouring as well.

Unswerved, we made our goodbyes and set forth rolling back to Halifax with our precious cargo in tow. The real test of our mettle - and the perilous brush with the breaking point in this project - was just around the corner.

Stage 7: Kings of the Road

2006-05-10T17:08:00.000-03:00

After waiting patiently for a week, the day arrived to lay claim to my arcade prizes. I convinced my roomate Colin "CeeDawg" Campbell to come along to not only make sure this wasn't another ninja-orchestrated trap, but to help me wrangle these machines into the confines of Allan Street.

The weather was grey and rainy. Normally I don't care about the weather, but today it would play a fairly signifigant role in our operation.

We took off for Green Street and I found myself standing in a ramshackle used furniture store that also doubled as a U-Haul rental office for some bewildering reason. The staff were friendly, if not a little shady looking, and soon I was given the keys to my transportation.

The van we had been assigned was in a sorry state of repair, and that's being kind. This thing was filthy, the outside totally covered with graffiti and muck. The inside was little better, with stale cigarette smoke seared into the off-blue seats and crushed butts littering the ashtray. I knew it was bad when Cee, a chronic smoker, commented on the stench. Huzzah.

The mechanical condition of this wreck was little better. The wipers only had two settings, off and near-light-speed, which made negotiating the steady rainfall most entertaining.

The turn signals appeared to work, but were tempermental and needed coaxing to activate. The windshield leaked a near constant stream of water directly onto Cee's lap, which did little to inspire confidence, although the steady flow of profanities emitted from Cee as he tried in vain to escape this uninvited pissing-upon was rather amusing.

The pedals were in shambles. The brakes were extremely sticky, requiring almost all my weight to activate and a mere touch of the accelerator sent the van lurching forward wildly. Not exactly what you want to deal with when driving in the fog and rain in a vehicle you've never used before.

The engine gasped like an old man on his deathbed, eliciting worried looks from myself and Cee. At least the horrendous cacophony this beast made as it ambled about the parking lot assured me that if the turn signals did eventually fail as I predicted, any neighboring motorists would surely hear our catostrophic approach and swerve to avoid certain death.

Undaunted, we set sail aboard our decrepid rig for parts unknown. Cee was manning the maps and I was doing all I could to not murder passing cars and pedestrians. The game was officially afoot.

For some reason, we were barred from using the Angus L. MacDonald bridge (aka, the Old Bridge), as the crone at the U-Haul office indicated that "U-Hauls ain't allowed on there". According to the official bridge website, the bridge is open to all vehicles under 3,200kg. I had neglected to pick the van up over my head to gauge its weight before heading out, so I had to take her word for it.

Since our printed directions to Kevin's place were predicated on using the Old Bridge, Cee had to bust out his sextant and compass and plot us a new course through deepest darkest Dartmouth. Oh, and as an FYI to anyone who tries to drive a van across the New Bridge, the toll is a full $1.75, as we were so pleasantly informed by the cancer-ridden gargoyle working at the booth. Shudder.

Despite almost no visibility and an increasing feeling of dread, we managed to zip through Dartmouth pretty quickly. We resisted the natural urge to drop in on the weekend buffet at Ralph's Place - my recent visit to Kama Sutra in Montreal has turned me into a strip club snob, anyways.

Not long after that big "wheeeeeeee!" hill on the road out towards Lawrencetown, we found ourselves perilously close to our ultimate goal. Deftly maneuvering through the sculpted landscapes of this suburbia, we rolled up at the address in question.

We stepped out of the van at the foot of a monstrous gravel driveway which rolled down the hillside like the giant grey toungue of the mansion that perched ontop of the crest. As we contemplated the increasingly heavy rainfall and marvelled at the size of the house we were staring at, a man appeared from around the back of the house, cigarette in hand.

This is where things got interesting.

Stage 6: The U-Haul "Guarantee"

2006-05-09T16:44:00.000-03:00

A small digression to explain to the uninitiated about why contracting the Hantavirus is preferable to dealing with U-Haul:

Thinking that I would need more than a pickup truck to haul my pair of treasures back to my cave on Allan Street, I took up a phone book and tracked down a moving company in hopes of securing a small cube van. Having almost been killed by a maniac in a U-Haul van some time previous, that company was the first on my mind and I soon located their website.

The site is well done, and reserving a van for the weekend proved to be a painless experience. The confirmation emails that "guaranteed" my van would be waiting for me at a place of my choosing were very comforting indeed.

My liberal use of quotation marks around the word "guaranteed" has likely tipped you off as to what occured next.

I reserved the van on a Wednesday for a Saturday jaunt to Cole Harbour. Around Friday at dinner time, I received a call from U-Haul informing me that there was a "shortage of vans" in the Halifax area and I could either reschedule for next week or cancel my booking with the cancellation fee waived.

Now, I was just trying to get some arcade games from Cole Harbour, so this wasn't a huge deal to me. But this was all happening on April 30th, when presumably many people were actually relocating their entire house to another place. So I pressed the U-Haul peon a little on the issue:

Me: "So, there's no vans to be had then?"

Peon: "That is correct."

Me: "Even though I had a reservation?"

Peon: "Yes, I am afraid there are no vans to meet your reservation."

Me: "So the word 'reservation' is a bit of a misnomer then isn't it? I mean, it appears there was no 'reserving' done at all here."

Peon (likely confused at use of word 'misnomer'): "Uh, well, we're very busy at this time of the year."

Me: "Yes, I kind of presumed you would be. That's why I paid a deposit and, you know, RESERVED a van ahead of time."

Peon: "Um, well, would you like to reschedule?"

Me: "I guess I'll have to, won't I? How's next Saturday?"

Peon: "Let's see ... *clacking of keyboard* ... yes, next Saturday is fine."

Me: "So I will have a van for sure next Saturday?"

Peon: "Yes, we can guarantee a van or a larger van at the same price for next Saturday."

Me: "Guarantee? But you already 'guaranteed' me a van for tomorrow and this conversation is the result."

Peon: "Er, uh ..."

Me: "I mean, I just need to move some stuff INTO my place, but what if my lease was up and I had to move my junk across town?"

Peon: "Well, you see, we ... um ..."

At this point I grew weary of raking this wretch over the coals and agreed to the new deal. I sauntered out the door and down the block to the Superstore to pick up some dinner, where I passed not one, but TWO U-Haul vans during the 200m walk down Monastery Lane. That's one hell of a van shortage indeed.

Stage 5: The Proverbial Greco Sweet Deal

2006-05-09T16:24:00.000-03:00

Having been sufficiently wooed by the Classic Playfields website, I contacted them via email and explained my plight, including the details of my failed trip to Darrell's Coin Machines.

I received a response from Kevin Wayte pretty quickly. He told me in no short order about how I was lucky to have missed Darrell as he was apparently an asshole of some repute in HRM video gaming circles, and explained how he had screwed them around with the sale of some pinball machines when his shop went belly up some time ago.

Kevin then said the magic words: "I have a couple of old cabs if you want one, $50. Just come on out and take it." Booyaka.

I immediately jumped at his offer, and tried to sweeten the deal with a celebratory case of beer for his generosity and helpfulness. Kevin took me up for a case of Smirnoff Ice instead, and then revealed that could I avail myself of BOTH arcade cabinets if I had the means to collect them. For the bargain price of $50, this was the proverbial Greco Sweet Deal. All I needed now was a way to get these beasts from Cole Harbour to Allan Street. Back to the Yellow Pages I went.

Stage 4: Fortune Favours The Bold

2006-05-08T15:45:00.000-03:00

Trolling the net using Google for things like "halifax games" and "nova scotia arcade" and the like wasn't getting me anywhere fast. I did learn all about how to rent bounce-castles and neon signs, which was very enlightening to say the least.

Just when I thought Google was going to actually let me down, I came across Classic Playfield Reproductions, a Cole Harbour based company that appeared to refurbish pinball machines and the like. Nifty, I thought, as I dug around their site for a contact who might put me in touch with an arcade machine vendor in town.

If you haven't already, I suggest you go and check out the People link on their site, as there as some great pictures of the pinball collections of Mike and Kevin, the two local spigots in this company. I can't help but lure you in with a picture of Kevin's incredible gameroom, pictured at right. One glance at this, and I knew I was dealing with the right people.

Stage 3: Wookin' Poo Nub In All Da Wong Pwaces

2006-05-08T15:24:00.000-03:00

Now, for any MAME purists out there, I know that overhauling a vintage machine for MAMEing is considered verboten. I'm all for restoring and archiving classic games, and if there was some other way to make this project happen without gutting a classic machine, I'd be all for it. I was hoping to find someone who had an old curbside-bound machine somewhere in the local HRM area, so I'd feel less bad about ripping a piece of arcade history apart for my selfish desires.

The Yellow Pages were decidedly non-helpful. The one place I did want to peruse was this shady-ass joint on Gottingen Street called "Darrell's Coin Machines", a sooty nightmare of a place that usually had 3-4 vagabonds and/or drugdealers slumped over in the doorway. Mike Drake eluded to this temple of gloom in a comment on a previous post.

A phone call put me in contact with the oldest sounding answering machine I have ever heard on a telephone. Convinced that I would not be getting a phonecall back, I showed up at Darrell's in person one day, and after awkwardly deflecting several solicitations for spare change and cigarettes from the colourful locals, I pressed my face up against the filthy windows only to see that Darrell appeared to have flown the coop. I considered calling the police, as from the level of disarray and offal on the inside, someone appeared to have set off a small explosive device recently. My search would have to continue elsewhere. And by elsewhere, I mean the Internet.

Stage 2: Build or Pillage?

2006-05-07T23:04:00.000-03:00

The next big step was to actually construct a cabinet in which to mount these great controls. I wanted something that looked nice, a true upright arcade box that would become the centerpiece of my living room (a function currently occupied by the hideousness that is my fireplace mantle).

But herein lay a choice: rely on my untested carpentry skills, buy an outrageously expensive prefabricated cabinet or hunt down an old arcade machine and gut it out.

Pricing the costs of building materials, tools and psychological counselling after what would be a guaranteed loss of limb at my own hands, I decided the building option was right out.

Pricing the prefabricated cabinets was equally fraught with horror. The shipping alone was going to put this project waaaaay into the red.

So that left me with trying to track down a cabinet in town. I know there are/were arcades in this city, so those games and their tantalizing cabinets had to go somewhere. The hunt was officially on.

Stage 1: Getting Control

2006-05-07T22:40:00.000-03:00

The first piece of gear I laid actual money out for:

The X-Arcade Dual Joystick

Got this on eBay for $170 CDN taxes and delivery in. FedEx sent me a nice "you owe us $11.17 for brokering this across the border for you" invoice, those bastards. Anyways, it was all worth it.

This is where any MAME project must begin. It was a lot cheaper than I imagined, and was a big hit around the office when it arrived.

Hooking this puppy up to my PC and tooling around with MAME Roms and Front End software really got my juices flowing about the project. I can't wait to throw a few RYUKEN fireballs with this badboy once my machine is complete!

Let's Do This Thang

2006-05-07T22:33:00.000-03:00

Blog created. Hopefully this will allow me to chronicle this whole MAME experience properly. Otherwise, I shall have to destroy all that is good in the world. That, and learn HTML again. Screw that.

Here's a link that will help you figure out what in blazes I am talking about here.

Pictures of other MAME Cabinets