Further Construction And Painting

Following on from the cutting we started with the assembly of the cabinet. To attach the pieces we used plastic brackets and a couple of plastic angled brackets; I contemplated using wood glue also but I'm reluctant to do so as I may wish to take the cabinet apart at some point in the future and I'm confident it'll be strong enough once the assembly is complete. First we measured out all the holes to drill and then we attached the brackets:

Once these parts were put into the cabinet we added two strips of plastic to act as supports for the ends of the control panel:

Really pleased with the way the cabinet is looking now, because I was pretty organised going into this, so far the build doesn't seem to be too difficult at all. The next step is to begin the painting which, I've decided, will require two coats of white primer to begin. When working with MDF the most important thing when it comes to painting is making sure that the surface is sealed correctly. Many primers are water based and these should be AVOIDED at all cost when it comes to priming the surface, as water based will raise the fibres in the wood. The primer I've chosen is 'satin based' and is called 'grey steel' which is slightly off-white and perfect for the colour I'll be applying over it.

The rollers are just cheap ones I picked up from The Range which are ideal for use on smooth surfaces.

 

Before I started the painting I quickly sanded over the surface with sandpaper (I used the 'extra fine' for all of the coats apart from the final coat, for which I will use the 'super fine'), this should ALWAYS be done before ANY coat of paint is applied; I then wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove any dust.

Water-based painted tends to dry much faster than the satin based paint I'm using, and as such it's been taking roughly 24 hours for a coat to completely dry even in the warmth of the house rather than the cold garage where the work is taking place.

A couple of days later and the undercoats are finished and the surface is looking really nice. So again I use the sandpaper (extra fine) and apply my first coat of coloured paint using another roller. The colour scheme and artwork is based on the original 1981 Nintendo of America cabinet for Donkey Kong so I choose 'Warm Blue' from the 'Colours' range from B&Q. A cabinet this size won't require too much paint but at least 3 coats will be required, so instead of buying a large tin for £18 I bought small 'match pot' tubs for £1.10 each, of which I may only need to use 3 or 4.

For the back door and the insides of the cabinet I am using black; I've yet to decide on whether to paint the entire interior black or just the part that will be visible next to the bezel and control panel on the inside of the side-panels.

So now the first blue and black coats are on and drying... looking good so far...

Manuals Viewer For Hyperspin

As the cabinet I'm building is focused solely on arcade gaming, I thought it would be nice to have an archive of manuals and artwork that would be able to be viewed by launching into a seperate viewer from the Hyperspin menus. It took me a while to figure out how best to do this; I started with the manuals first. The program I've decided to use to view the manuals is ComicRack (a program I was already familiar with due to my love of comics) with the addition of Ghost Script which enables ComicRack to display .pdf files. ComicRack is definitely the best comic reader software out there for many reasons. The first is that it is pretty customisable and the layout of the program interface can be changed around to suit. Secondly, the actual viewer is very slick and just looks and feels really nice. Thirdly, it has a library which has some very useful features suited for what I'm trying to do alongside Hyperspin.

So first I put a bunch of manuals in the ComicRack folder which installed in the emulators folder in Hyperspin. Then in HyperHQ I configured a new item on the main wheel called Manuals which I set to contain a sub-wheel. On the subwheel I wanted to have each letter of the alphabet to make the viewing of the manuals much easier as there will be quite a lot of them. To do this I went into databases folder in Hyperspin and located the, newly created, 'manuals' folder. In here I created a manuals.xml and started to apply the following code:

<menu>

<game name="0-9">

<description>#0-9 Manuals</description>

<cloneof></cloneof>

<manufacturer>Press F11 & F3 for full screen.</manufacturer>

<year></year>

<genre></genre>

</game>

<game name="A">

<description>A Manuals</description>

<cloneof></cloneof>

<manufacturer>Press F11 & F3 for full screen.</manufacturer>

<year></year>

<genre></genre>

</game>

<game name="B">

<description>B Manuals</description>

<cloneof></cloneof>

<manufacturer>Press F11 & F3 for full screen.</manufacturer>

<year></year>

<genre></genre>

</game>

<game name="C">

<description>C Manuals</description>

<cloneof></cloneof>

<manufacturer>Press F11 & F3 for full screen.</manufacturer>

<year></year>

<genre></genre>

</game>

</menu>

This code will give me the letters A,B and C on the wheel plus a 0-9 title for Manuals beginning with a number.

So now I have my alphabet set-up I want ComicRack to launch and display the specified Manuals. To do this I added the folder containing the manuals into the library in ComicRack and then created individual reading lists for each letter of the alphabet. To do this, right-click in the sidebar and select 'New List' and name it accordingly. Then highlight all of the files you wish to put in that list, right-click, and then 'add to list' and choose the desired reading list.

Next, in the sidebar right click on a reading list and select 'export reading list' and save the '.cbl' file in the same folder as the manuals within ComicRack. This .cbl file is what we'll use within Hyperspin to launch the reading list that corresponds to our wheel. When naming the .cbl file in ComicRack, make sure that it matches the assigned letter that we put in the manuals.xml file; e.g. <game name="A"> the corresponding file should be named A.cbl.

Now all that is left to do is to configure the wheel in HyperHQ. Set 'execution' to normal instead of HyperLaunch, then put in the .exe path for ComicRack. Next set the path for the folder of where the manuals are located, enable 'full path to roms' and also 'search subfolders' and finally in the 'extensions' box type cbl.

And there it is, a fully functioning archive and a great resource to just peruse, all that's left to do is to create a custom theme and wheel art. Using pretty much the same method but with some slight changes I'll be adding a viewer for cabinet artwork next.

Cabinet Construction Day 1

It's been a week since my last post and there's been quite a bit of progress to report. It turns out the PC I originally intended to use isn't up to running Hyperspin but luckily I have a spare machine which is faster. So I connected up the hard drive and it performs much better:

Asus A7V400-MX motherboard

AMD Athlon XP 2600+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.9GHz

1gb Ram

80gb Western Digital Hard Drive

So now I have both Mame0.147 with the Hiscore DIFF and Daphne up and running within Hyperspin. I've also added all of the EmuMovies for Hyperspin which looks fantastic. The more I use Hyperspin and get to know it, the more I realise just how powerful the software is; it can be a little tough getting started with it as there's so much to learn (if you're looking to customise it especially) but all the hard work really pays off in the end. I have some new things I'll be adding to Hyperspin too but more on that in the next post.

Earlier last week I took a trip down to B&Q and purchased the MDF for the cabinet construction. Typically bartop machines are built using ½" MDF (as opposed to ¾" MDF used for most upright cabinets) so I picked out the MDF Board (L)2440 x (W)1220 x (T)12MM.

Onto this (following my plans) I drew the first side panel in pencil. For the big curved line I used a piece of string around the pencil to draw an arc. 

Next the first side panel was cut with a jigsaw.

Using the cut out side panel as a template the second panel was drawn and cut out  Following this the rest of the parts were similarly drawn and cut out. All the other parts of the cabinet have straight edges, so to cut these we used a circular saw to get a straighter edge. When cutting out these parts it's best to draw one and then cut it rather than draw them all out at once and then cutting them. This is because when a cut is made a couple of mm (at least) will be lost due to the thickness of the blade and so the measurements will be off.

Next I did a little bit of sanding (with sandpaper rather than an electric sander) to the edging of the side panels. This is just to make the edges smoother but as I'll hopefully be applying T-Molding it isn't too important that this be perfect. Then I just did a quick once over with some rough sandpaper on the parts where paint will be applied as this will help the paint take to the wood better.

Now the cabinet is really starting to take shape!

Design Plans for Cabinet

I stated in my last post that my cabinet is to be based on a design that several users on the Hyperspin forums are building, most notably 'mikekim'. The design in question originates from tinyarcades.co.uk which is normally sold as a kit, but using the plans I intend to build it myself (with help from my Dad) from scratch. One reason for this is cost, I don't have a lot of free cash and so this is the best option for me. Also, I am looking for a challenge and I feel the sense of achievement will be much greater by completing my own cabinet from scratch. Because the original plans didn't seem 100% clear to me (and also because I really enjoy drawing), I decided to redraw the plans:

Concept Sketch and Name

Quite a productive day, initially intended to try and make designs for construction of the cabinet with the intention of doing so using CAD. Turns out it's pretty complex and to do so would involve me learning a whole new program for such a small task, hardly worth it. So instead I'm going to do it in good old pencil and pen.

Also, I finally have a name for my project - 'Barcade', which seems almost obvious now what with it being a bartop and all... So here is a concept sketch, tomorrow I hope to get down drawings with complete measurements for construction which will hopefully begin next week. My main inspiration is from the 'Retrocade' which I found on the Hyperspin forums by user 'mikekim' (check this thread and the photos on page 3, such a good looking project: Retrocade

Installing Windows XP

Installing Windows XP onto the PC which will eventually be running Mame and Hyperspin as the frontend.

Hello World!!

Hello World!

First Things First...

Ok, first I'm going to start with the name, 'The Gaming Exegesis'. What does it mean? Well the word 'exegesis' means "critical explanation or analysis" which is what this blog pertains to in relation to my interest (or love for) gaming and gaming culture. It's a place where I can throw down my thoughts about anything to do with gaming be it the history of gaming, a new release, reaction to industry news or any projects that I have on the go. I chose the name because of the book 'The Exegesis of Philip K Dick' whom I considered to be the greatest science fiction author of all time. The book contains published sections of journal kept by PKD, which documents and explores his religious and visionary experiences. So that's that cleared up then.

So What's Currently On The Agenda?

Well, for some time I've had a real desire to build myself an arcade machine. I've had countless versions of MAME and other emulators over the years and I currently play my favourite titles using my Xbox 360 controller but always wished they were housed in a custom built arcade cabinet with proper controls and my own artwork adorning it. Well the process of building my own is well under way and so I am going to use this little corner of the internet to document my progress.

For the past couple of weeks I have done a lot of research online and I'm also currently reading 'Project Arcade - Build Your Own Arcade Machine' by John St. Clair (creator of Build Your Own Arcade Controls - or BYOAC http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/) which is an excellent resource that I recommend highly.

Alongside my research I have also completed much of the groundwork needed for my frontend of choice 'Hyperspin' (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/), arguably the best and certainly the prettiest looking frontend (once all the required artworks and videos are added). I wasn't sure whether I should pay the subscription fee initially for access to the FTP but I'm seriously glad I did. At first I was downloading files straight from the website, which was proving to be a real pain due to the restrictions and amount of time it was taking. Not only are you paying for just the files but it is also going towards supporting a community without which none of this would be half as good, if even possible at all (plus I've come to realise the amount of time and effort these people are putting in now) so it's money well spent as far as I'm concerned. The next place I'm quite happy to donate some of my cash will be Emumovies (http://emumovies.com/forums/), again, the amount of work gone in to capturing video clips for the frontend is heroic.

Initially I wanted to build an arcade cabinet to host not only MAME but other emulators such as NES and SNES etc... But after thinking about it I decided I didn't like the idea of playing these games that were originally intended for use with a control pad. Then I thought, well I could maybe plug in my Xbox pad and play that way, but I really don't fancy the idea of sitting infront of the cabinet using a controller, it just seems wrong. So now I've decided to build a seperate unit that will go directly into my 40" Sony TV. That way I can sit back and play the console games the way they were supposed to be played. I'm pretty sure I've seen replicas of console controllers that work via USB which would make the experience all the more authentic (especially for something like the N64).

So currently I have two spare PC's (which is perfect) one of which is my old computer which I'm going to use for the cabinet (I've replaced the HD with a nice new 80gb Western Digital and also doubled the RAM) and the other was kindly donated to me by my Mums friend, which is twice as fast as the other PC, making it suitable for running more demanding emulators.

So now the frontends are nearing completion, my attention is starting to move towards the construction of the cabinet. I don't have a name for it yet so that is something I'm going to address very soon, what I do know is it's going to be a bartop for 2 players. This choice is down the fact I don't have room for a full-size cabinet and also a bartop can be placed in lots of different places and even brought out for parties. I've not really decided on button configurations exactly yet either, but there will likely be 6 buttons for each player as I'm a huge Street Fighter fan.

And there it is; my first post for The Gaming Exegesis. Time to get down to some more research I think...