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Geek Culture / Designing an arcade machine and need help

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Mr Z
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 16:49
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Hi all.

I am studying about how to make games at the universety. And at the moment we are going to design arcade machines (to be honest it will be an computer disguised as an arcade machine). The thing is, we are supposed to list ALL hardware components needed until thursday. But I do not know anything about this.

The machine will have an screen and 6-7 buttons. That is all I know at the moment (the game itself that run in the machine will be created in C#).

Screen, computer, cables, some kind of button thing... and at the school they mentioned some kind of hardware thing that would make the computer treat the buttons as an keyboard. But that is all I know.

Can anyone help me with what hardware components I will need?

Take care,
Mr Z.

Darkness, you haunt me. If I give in, I would be an monster beyond imagining. Light, you guide me. Thanks to you, I see past the nothingness. Life, I choose to live in the light.
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Dazzag
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 16:52
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A friend of mine has one. He used an old arcade machine from Ebay, and then replaced the insides with a computer and a monitor. In the end he had 4 joysticks on it with loads of buttons. Guantlet was tops on it

Anyways, I haven't got the foggiest, but if I remember rightly he did a lot of searching for MAME arcade cabinets. Try Googling that, it may help.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 17:52
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Shouldn't you have attended some lecture where they would have told you about this stuff?

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xplosys
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 18:37
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Thre is a wealth of info about arcade games and building your own on Google. Just Google "Build your own Arcade game machine".

This one looked pretty informative.

Best.

fpsFREE.com - for FREE FPSC Content
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_Nemesis_
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 19:21 Edited at: 13th Apr 2008 19:21
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Check out Revision3's Systm (http://www.revision3.org/systm). They just built a MAME cabinet which looks pretty damn awesome.

It's a series of about 5 episodes, 20 minutes long and they go into quite a bit of detail about how they constructed it, what was required, and some of the system-side stuff too.

Well worth a look.
Edit: Starts from episode 24 (http://revision3.com/systm/page/4/#episodes)

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Mr Z
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Posted: 13th Apr 2008 19:41
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Will check those things out. Thanks . And if you think of anything else, just post.

Quote: "Shouldn't you have attended some lecture where they would have told you about this stuff?"


Do not have any lectures. We have one class a week and they tell us what to do but nothing more. The rest i passed on to us by an website, but it does not really work, so I cannot access anything relevant to this course.

Darkness, you haunt me. If I give in, I would be an monster beyond imagining. Light, you guide me. Thanks to you, I see past the nothingness. Life, I choose to live in the light.
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Sigh
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Posted: 14th Apr 2008 01:13
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Quote: "(to be honest it will be an computer disguised as an arcade machine)"


You got me all excited because I thought you were really designing one.

I'd say that you'd pretty much need everything that you would in a normal computer gaming setup.

Quote: "The rest i passed on to us by an website, but it does not really work, so I cannot access anything relevant to this course."


If thats the case, then wouldnt ya think its time to find another school?

Fighting the War Against Misused Apostrophes since 2002! Stop by for a chat! [IXE]Nateholio on irc.maxgaming.net:6667 #GarageGames
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Zappo
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Posted: 14th Apr 2008 01:38
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Off the top of my head I guess these are required:

Cabinet (to put everything in)
Computer (motherboard, CPU, memory, video card, sound card, PSU etc.)
Boot device (containing operating system and your game - a hard drive is easiest, fastest and let you save high scores but a CD would probably be less corruptable and cheaper)
Screen (traditionally CRT but an LCD one would be nice as long as you added a tough anti-scratch cover)
Speakers (if not built in to the screen you choose)
Input device (joystick type control or trackball)
Coin accepting mechanism (if you want it to be a real arcade machine)


Chart data provided with kind permission from ELSPA
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Mr Z
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Posted: 14th Apr 2008 12:35
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Zappo, thanks .

Quote: "You got me all excited because I thought you were really designing one."


If I make it fun and good it will be placed an a couple of locations all around the country .

Quote: "If thats the case, then wouldnt ya think its time to find another school?"


I switched from another program that made me insane to this one, because I did not want to become insane. But I do not like this one either. So I will switch again this summer, and if it does not fit me then, well, then I will stay and make the best of it.

Darkness, you haunt me. If I give in, I would be an monster beyond imagining. Light, you guide me. Thanks to you, I see past the nothingness. Life, I choose to live in the light.
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