Incase anyone interested building a dedicated cabinet

[Atari800]

Here is what I purchased from eBay in my conquest to getting components to be a very low cost cabinet

#1 The computer

$285

This did not include a mouse or keyboard or drives....BUT..........

This 3.0 Ghz pentium can be overclocked to 3.8 Ghz and be stable at that rate

I left it running California Speed in Mame all night long

I monitored the cpu heat and it didnt seam it was running much hotter playing CS than sitting idle

This is a very overclockable machine

*built in graphics are not the best but again - mame doesnt care because it does not take advantage of hardware in graphics cards

#2 The 20 LCD

$121.00

The Dell monitor has all the connectors

RCA-SVideo-GVA-DVI

The specs show the refresh is slow but honestly - I dont see it

I guess because in Mame screen rates max out at 60fps

#3 The Arcade controls

$88.95

* A 3 inch PS/2 Blue Translucent Trackball Mouse from Betson Imperial

* 3 Blue Maximum Joysticks from Betson Imperial

* 63 Arcade Push Buttons

o 28 Blue Push Buttons from Betson Imperial

o 16 White Push Buttons from Betson Imperial

o 1 Red Push Button from Betson Imperial

o 1 Green Push Button from Betson Imperial

o 1 Player 1 Push Button from Betson Imperial

o 1 Player 2 Push Button from Betson Imperial

o 2 Blue Push Buttons from an Ebay Seller

o 13 White Push Buttons from an Ebay Seller

* A Total of 70 Microswitches

o 58 Loose Microswitches for the Push Buttons

o 12 Microswitches on the 3 Joysticks

* 61 Nuts, to hold the Push buttons in place

* About 101 end pieces that you solder to your wire ends that slide on and off of the microswitches

* Y Mouse-Keyboard & Mouse Adapter for USB

* A Gravis Gamepad Pro Usb Controller

#5 Speakers

$59.81

Bose speakers

ok these are more high priced than what I wanted but...

Bose ...and they sound great - crisp - loud

Bose...man ...Bose

#6 Mame controller TOKN 32

$47.95

Grand total

$602.71

Now I got stuff laying around (keyboard, mouse, harddrive, and cd player) that I put in but if anyone was trying to keep up with costs...figure

keyboard - $10 <---find cheapest...only need to configure stuff...I got one of those illuminated keyboards which helps out alot

mouse - $4 <---find cheapest or borrow - trackball in unit will be mouse later

cd player - $20 <--- find a clearance sale - only gonna use it to load OS...you could borrow one

Harddrive - $80 <----this varies...suggest getting brand name - quality vs quantity

This is miscellanious stuff and milage may vary on prices

Now other things to get:

Millstead

3/4 In. x 2 Ft. x 4 Ft. MDF Pre-cut Panels

Model 15138

(Home Depot)

$6.88 each x 5 =$34.40

Caster wheels

4 for $7.00 at Skycraft Geek Heaven

*the prices on the website are higher than what they have instore

LCD mount - this is hard to find at a decent price

Radio shack has them at like $90

Sams had them at $30 but are no longer there...doh!

This is one of those things I need to find cheap as possible...this will never be seen

Maybe once the case is built - I might toss some decorations on it Inexpensive cool lights

So I am coming in under $700

Minus time spent and Beers to be drank

Too bad there was a WORK IN PROGRESS section here in the forums...as this is not a HELP ME thread more like a WANNA WATCH

Cheers-n-stuff

/|\

[Ricci]

As a IT dude..I can tell you...overclocking only leads to shorter life span..resist the urge!!

[Deadly]

  Ricci said:

As a IT dude..I can tell you...overclocking only leads to shorter life span..resist the urge!!

OC'ing a proc can be harmful if you don't maintain a decent temperature. The key word is temperature. Heat will kill anything not just procs. Liquid cooling is cheap enough - Koolance.com.

[Atari800]

Thanks for the TIPS

I was more curious to see how fast it could be tweaked and sustained

As far as playing PACMAN - I see no difference

And the new 108 has multi-threading but the speed and MT doest make California Speed that much faster

It's reverted back to the 3.0 Ghz

But even if it did explode - $280 is something I could rebound from

[Will]

i was going to overclock my celeron, but then I thought, why create the extra burden on my pc to make about 5 games only a LITTLE more passable when I have thousands of other games that think they have died and gone to heaven on a 3.2gHz PC?? I have actually thought about de-clocking it so that it is silent since processor speed is so unnecessary for most games. Haven't done it yet though. Either way I am happy with my $30 Celeron 351. Of course all this logic only makes sense on a dedicated cabinet.

[shbon]

  Will said:

i was going to overclock my celeron, but then I thought, why create the extra burden on my pc to make about 5 games only a LITTLE more passable when I have thousands of other games that think they have died and gone to heaven on a 3.2gHz PC?? I have actually thought about de-clocking it so that it is silent since processor speed is so unnecessary for most games. Haven't done it yet though. Either way I am happy with my $30 Celeron 351. Of course all this logic only makes sense on a dedicated cabinet.

Sort of why I stopped at a P4 2.8GHz. It's cheap second-hand, fast enough for GameEx niceities (and of course easily capable of running all the old-skool games and consoles I'm interested in with a lot to spare) but the CPUs not stressed at all and doesn't need heaps of cooling...a simple quiet CPU Fan upgrade. Also chose a nVidia 6200 GPU. Not very powerful, but it's got 256mb RAM, DX9 support and doesn't even need a fan!

Choose carefully for your cabinet project...

Shaun