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M.A.M.E. Machine
....For
anyone interested in this sort of thing, here's a little
something on my arcade machine that runs Mame, along with a few
other emulators, mostly Nintendo systems since I'm a huge
Nintendo nut. I personally think they have and continue to make
the best quality games on the market, and even though they
aren't the most popular game company now a days, I admire them
for taking a risk and sticking to good old fashioned game play
to make enjoyable games. I think its pretty sad when taking a
risk in the gaming industry means not over-hyping
your game like there's no tomorrow and filling it to the brim
with guns and hookers. Not that I don't enjoy a good adult game,
but its kind of like the difference between a brand new pair of
$100 Nikes and a worn out old pair of Chucks that you've had for
years. Sure one is flashy and fun to show off, but the other
just has more character and soul (no pun intended.) But, that
argument's for another day, I'm getting off topic. Oh, and
for the purposes of this article, I delete my roms 24 hours
after use just everyone else...
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So here's a few pictures of it in various stages of its
construction. The frame for it I built back in high school when
I thought it would be cool to have a TV stand that looked like
an arcade cabinet, I had no real intentions of putting it to any
sort of gaming use. The whole thing was blue and just had some
stickers I made that mimicked art from the Mario Bros. arcade
game. After a while it just got more tacky than cool, but after
starting college and moving into my apartment I switched it out
as a sort of computer desk. I combined parts from my existing
computer desk with the frame, like the sliding keyboard tray,
and ordered official arcade joysticks and buttons and built them
in as well, hooking them into my computer making it a sort of
frankencompucade, if you will. Sitting an arcade machine to
check your email was cool at first, but ultimately hard on the
back, so this past summer I decided to use all the money I would
make working and throw it at this thing to see how good it could
get. I bought a 20 inch TV, new computer to free up my old one
to exclusively play games on, various arcade parts, and more
wood and paint. I designed the new shelving system and
compartments for the cabinet, the electronic interface and
wiring, and the outside graphics and paint job, then spent all
summer working on it. It was really a lot of fun, and I couldn't
have done it without my dad, who has a good couple decades of
woodworking experience on me.
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| And here are some pictures of how it looks today. I'm
sure it won't be too long before I think of something else I
want to add to it or change, but its cool knowing that I designed
every inch of the thing myself and built it together with my
dad. Somehow building it was more fun than playing it, you get
kind of spoiled having 1000s of arcade games at your fingertips.
My friends have all given me comments on it, but what irritates
me is me how some people tell me what's wrong with it and how
when they build one it's going to be better. What's interesting
is that of all the people who have said that no one has built
one of their own yet. Their attention span is probably too
shot from playing games where they blow stuff up every three
seconds. :)
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| The control panel and marquee design. You can find
bigger versions of my Mario, Luigi, and Samus drawings on the
art page. So that's it for this project, the way I see it those
games have stolen millions in quarters from unsuspecting kids
for over two decades now, I think this is mine and every Mame
users way to even things up a little.
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