Day 28

This is the third test for the best OS for the cabinet.  Windows 2000 was a bust (the no-fun version), Linux Mint was good, but the emulators are hit-or-miss, so after thinking about it, I came to realize that the time when all the emulators ran well and the OS didn't get on my nerves was Windows 98.

So after testing two 15 Gb drives I had in the garage and found both of them were totally trashed due to the master boot record being corrupted and unrecoverable, I pulled the secondary hard drive from my primary computer and used it. The nice thing was that the drive was already partitioned into three drives, the other two already being used for the games I've had on for years.

I decided on "Game Launcher", which is a nice, simple, DOS-based front end for all of the emulators and plays well with joystick control, eliminating the need for a keyboard and mouse.  After a few trial and error attempts, MAME was working with no trouble.  As soon as I have the screenshots for each game pasted, that'll be done. After that, I can add the Nintendo SNES, Vectrex, Turbografix 16, PinMAME, and so on and so forth. I'm also hoping to get the Daphne emulator running so I can incorporate the laser disc games.

Meanwhile, I found someone in Oceanside giving away two old-fashioned CRT monitors. One of them being a 19-inch, which should do nicely.  Now I just need to build the shelf for it to sit on inside the cabinet, something strong as this sucker is heavy.




This weekend, we moved the cabinet from the garage to the family room and moved the exercise equipment to the garage to set up a work-out station. Three pieces of equipment were too big for the room anyway. It went better than I expected, as the arcade cabinet weighs a ton and we had to walk it in.

Day 10

Well, today I decided to work on the guts of the cabinet. I spent the last two days trying to decide which OS I wanted to run it on. After several upgrades, several reinstalls and much desk pounding with the fist, I decided to use Linux Mint.

I used the ShuttleX case I got whilst working at SOE (thanks, DennisG). I put in a measly 20 Gb hard drive just for the environment and will put in a secondary drive for the larger games (laser disc games, etc.)

It also supported the Playstation 2 game controller I connected without any trouble. It's just temporary until I get the arcade controls later on.

Now I just gotta keep my eye on a free monitor on Craigslist (somewhere between 19 and 24 inches). With everyone trying to get rid of their CRT monitors, that shouldn't take too long.

I found a front-end for MAME that also supports other emulators as well as an mp3 jukebox. Still got a lot of work to do to stabilize this system and make it automated, but it's coming right along.