Hello. Welcome to the homepage of the Big Boom Box. Here you will find out about my arcade cabinet project, and its status. This page takes the form of an imaginary conversation between me and you. Of course, because its imaginary, I've had to guess what you would say. Deal with it :)
Unfortunetly, although MAME can trick the games into thinking they are running on an arcade machine, it can't trick the player into thinking that they are playing it on an arcade machine - the feeling just isn't there when a fireball involves two key presses, instead of a twist of the wrist, and every time you play track and field, someone is sitting at your shoulder screaming "don't break my keyboard you bloody bastard son of a ...". Therefore, in order to really get the feeling of playing an arcade game, it is nessecary to mount a PC and screen inside a cabinet, along with real arcade joysticks and buttons.
Another thing that is possible on a cabinet, that isn't on a keyboard (and this is a major consideration for me) is multiple player games. King of Fighters 98 is a great game. But its much better when you are able to assert your superiority over your flatmates with it. The humble keyboard just isn't up to the task. And more players ( TMNT, Gauntlet ) mean more fun.
Recently I saw a link to another arcade cabinet page, Roswell 80210. Reading through the page, I was constantly stunned by the similarity of his project to mine. All my precious ideas had been stolen. (Of course, this logic completly falls away under any sort of examination at all. He has already finished his cabinet, meaning he must of had the ideas long before I did, and therefore could not of got them through morhpic resonance. But I don't care. They were my ideas damn it. :)
So, I decided to tell the world about MY arcade cabinet, so that everybody can marvel at its beauty.
Features of my great and gracious cabinet:
All DOS based (as no mouse most of time)
Controls:
Full removable system. Initial controls:
4 x Joysticks, each with 6 buttons
4 x Player start buttons, two of which illuminate in some games
4 x Coin buttons / misc. buttons
Custom built wood cabinet
20" VGA Sampo monitor
Steel rotating frame for monitor
Custom control interface using parallel port (maybe)
Custom front-end, supporting MAME, CC64S, KGen98, ZSnes, Raine, UAE, and many others
Of course, its a definite help that I work in an industrial manufacturing company, so that I have lots of clever engineer type people to harass to do any hard stuff (read anything-to-do-with-tools-or-steel-at-all).
You can get in touch with me at (obvious modification neccesary): hamishf_nospam@usa.net
Spam me and die. I mean it. My hunter-killer robots will find you, and gut you like a pig :)