Arcade Cabinet

Last Update:

+ Monday - November 11, 2002

Finally figured out the keyboard encodings for the arcade cab. Below are the encodings, along w/ the shifted keys (misc actions in parens):

P1S = 1
P1C = 5
P1U = Up
P1L = Left
P1D = Dwn
P1R = Rght
P1B1 = Ctrl
P1B2 = Opt
P1B3 = Spc
P1B4 = Shft
P1B5 = Z
P1B6 = X

P2S = 2
P2C = 6
P2U = R
P2L = D
P2D = F
P2R = G
P2B1 = A
P2B2 = S
P2B3 = Q
P2B4 = W
P2B5 = I
P2B6 = K

Shifted keys:

P1S = <SH>
P1B1 = F3 (reset)
P1B2 = Tab (config)
P1B3 = ` (adjust)
P1B4 = F11 (fps)
P1B5 = \ (ffwd)
P1B6 = ] (fullscrn)

P2S = 5
P2B1 = O
P2B2 = K
P2B3 = A
P2B4 = Y
P2B5 = Ent
P2B6 = Esc (quit)

For the most part this set up works really well, as there is no conficts w/ buttons and shouldn't be any ghosting. The only real problem is fast forward. For a few emulators I need to change the keyboard bindings on the Mac to make the different keystrokes work w/ the same key across emulators. Unfortunatley in MAME it won't recognize "\" while playing the game to fast forward. Not a huge deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Previous Updates

11.10.2002
10.26.2002
07.23.2002
03.12.2002
02.15.2002

The Idea

The Cabinet: Right now I'm planning on modeling the cabinet after either the Asteroids cab, or the Mortal Kombat cab. I'm leaning towards Asteroids quite heavily at this point. I plan on building it all from scratch. Still need to figure out dimensions and materials however. The other option I have considered is buying a combo metal/fiberglass Japanese sit down cab, which are much cooler looking than American wooden cabs, but tend to be a bit short if you want to stand up and play (like most people are used to).

The Games: Most of my work over the last 6 months has been in the area of getting my ROMs together so the cab can play as many games as possible. This is actually a lot more work than it seems. As of right now the cabinet should theoretically be able to play 15,340 different games that I have accumulated, and emulate Arcade Games, Atari 2600, Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis, Atari Lynx, NES, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, Sega Master System, Super NES, and TurboGrafx-16. Depending on how far along other emulators are when the cab is done and how my computer holds up, this number may go up or down (most likley down, sorting through 15k games to play doesn't sound like too much fun ;).

The Hardware: I plan on buying a new Mac G5 when they come out (come on Apple, I'm waiting) and then using my old G3 as the CPU to run all the games. Input will be via standard arcade controls bought through Happ, and will include a two player setup w/ 6 buttons each, a trackball, a spinner, and 1 & 2 player start buttons (at a minimum). Controls will be connected to the Mac via the I-PAC keyboard encoder. I haven't figured out the monitor situation yet, but it will either be an actual arcade monitor, or a TV with S-Video. I am pretty sure that I'd like to use a Scan Converter for the video out, as I believe this will result in a nice picture, that I can use with any future hardware I need to.

The Interface: I'm going to build a frontend interface to basically turn the MacOS desktop into the arcade desktop. Right now I'm leaning towards doing it in Mozilla and using XML/XSLT/DHTML for the data/presentation. The Mozilla group still needs to fix a couple bugs before this can be a feasible option, but at the rate I'm going (ie, taking my time) I'm not to concerned about that. The design on the frontend is a work in progress as I build it. Also, the input to the frontend will be through the arcade controls themselves, not through a keyboard or mouse.

This is going to be a pretty slow process. I'm taking my time. As I get further along into the project, I'll be posting updates, with screenshots if necessary, about how it's going.