Bunker Project Log

The recently acquired MAME Cabinet was sort of the dream fulfilled, but before that fell in my lap, I had decided to settle on converting my Make Trax Cocktail machine into a MAME cabinet. This was brought out to me by my Pa?a few moons ago. I hadn’t really had a chance of messing with it, because it was buried under? massive piles of junk (that now solely inhabit the Bunker Workroom.)

My previous plan was to make replicas of the wooden control panel base. These are basically a piece of longer than wide plywood, on which I can place the standard stick and 6 button combo.

As I mentioned in Episode I of the Bunker MAME project, there was some serious stickyage going on with?Player?1’s button set.?I felt that before I could continue on?with the project, this had to be rectified.

?Luckily, my 3 year old ensures an adequate supply of?disposable plastic cups, so?I loaded?one up with buttons.

Then I filled it with rubbing alcohol, taped on a second matching cup and made like a Martini and shook. (This is practically an ad for Olive Garden Kid’s Meals.)

This weekend, I convinced the wife (but no one else, dammit)?to play “Arkham Horror” with me. The general populace at Boardgamegeek regards it highly, and she had read good things about it, so we were good to go.

?I, having learned of her mercurial, fruit-fly-like attention span, made sure to read the rules. Twice. I also did all the setup, which was like planning a wedding. This game is big, and there are zillions of chits, lots of dice, and… seriously, more than 15 different decks of cards… tiny, unshuffleable cards.

?The Spread (notice?the baggies of chits all over the place.):

I have been talking a good game about getting a Bunker MAME cabinet going for a while now. I’ve spent enough time with the software to?think it was eezy cheezy, but the?hardware has been a little daunting. First, I don’t really have the tools,?and second, I hate being reminded of all the dumb mistakes. In this case, we are talking about a piece of furniture that has to look?good.

I had my first real roadblock today. Pottse was reading a Musician’s Friend? catalog, and I was reminded of the pedal that came with my crappy Midi keyboard. (Of course, I could have used that if it weren’t buried with all the rest of the crap in the storeroom… do you see a trend here?)

?Anyway, I dug through the catalog and found the keyboard?sustain pedals. I’m not the most music equipment savvy guy, but I am pretty sure they are just a switch with a 1/4″ plug. This serves?my purpose well, and they are anywhere from $13-20 for the cheap ones. Right within my threshold of pain.

So I made it to Radio Shack and bought some jacks and plugs and switches. The jacks and plugs are standard 1/8″ deallies. Exactly like yer newfangled Walkman has. Here’s how they came out:

I was more concerned with the switch, and basically took a gamble. I bought a Submini Lever Switch, a Roller Lever Switch, and a pack of 4 Momentary?Pushbutton Switches.

For the first prototype, I slapped together some trim I had laying around, cardboard from the day’s Tanga shipment, and the Roller Lever Switch. I made a rough cavity in the trim for the switch to sit in, then taped it all together. Ghetto fabulous.

I’ve always felt guilty that Stub lost his hand whilst cutting trim for the DDR Room. I thought I would start atoning by making it possible for him to play Guitar Hero.

Unfortunately, the Bunker Workshop is full to the brim with crap, I almost broke my neck just getting in there.

This is the current state of my workbench. If my dad could see this, he would drive out and kick my ass. Usually the week before he comes out will be spent cleaning stuff like this up.

I thought I was pretty clever the way I mounted my projector. It is basically a piece of melamine shelving material dropped into the ceiling grid.

Unfortunately, If anyone walks anywhere near it on the floor above, the vibration causes the projected image to bounce.

This is nearly impossible to avoid when you have a hyperactive 3-year old! (Luckily, Bunker Parties and movie watching usually happens after bedtime.)

I don’t know whether this is a function of the cheap eBay mount, the ceiling grid, the construction of my house, or some other hidden x-factor, but it sucks.

I used to take great pride in having built, and upgraded, and rebuilt, and maintained the Bunker machines.

However, I’ve got two kids now, and about 5.7 seconds each day to figure out why machine #3 bluescreens, restore the drive on #6, and calculate the price to performance ratio on this motherboard and that processor combo at Newegg.

So I gave up.

Dell has had 3 weeks of amazing deals on their barest of systems… the E521. Somehow I got to sniffing around and realizing, there’s no way I can compete.

One of the design goals of the Bunker Lan was to keep all the hardware tucked away. No big beige boxes, no fan noise, no power buttons. The only thing players need to concern themselves with is the mouse, keyboard, monitor, headset, and the stick.

The only problem with this is the big fat bundle of USB and VGA cables that snakes its way from a crude hole in the wall to another cruder hole in the seating platform.

So far, there has been only one trip that I know of, but I worry about it every time.