Laevateinn
Member
NB: Anyone who is squeemish about the molestation of an innocent arcade cabinet stop here.
About a month ago, my girlfriend sent me an email about a craigslist listing for a Nintendo VS Mario cabinet that was for a good price. Like many people who battle scarred veterans of the great console war, I have always wanted one I could call my own so without thinking I sent an email to the owner asking if I could go see it.
When I arrived at his house I went into his garage, met his beautiful puppy and saw the game. It had seen better days but overall wasn't in too bad of shape. The worst was the picture seemed to go in and out. I figured this was fixable and next thing I knew I needed to find transport.
The first thing I did was contact some moving companies. If you guys are ever in my situation, never do this. The guy quoted me at $400 which was a lot more than I was spending on the thing. Instead, I did what I should have done first and got a friend to help me with a truck.
I finally got it into my apartment and it looked fantastic.
One of the first things I noticed, besides far too many dead spiders, was that some jerk lodged his balls deep inside the machine.
I've had a NeoGeo for a while that I was planning on building a supergun for until my soldering iron broke so it seemed like a good idea to me to convert the cabinet to JAMMA.
For those of you who aren't aware of what JAMMA is, it is a standard that was developed by several Japanese arcade producers so that operators could drop in new games with minimal rewiring. It has a monstrous connector that looks this.
First off, Nintendo decided that rather than adjust the circuitry for the American electrical system it would be easier to add a transformer that converts everything from 120VAC to 100VAC. This means that when I convert it to JAMMA, I will need to work my modern power supply in there so that the monitor is running off of 100VAC and everything else is 120VAC.
Secondly, and most annoyingly, colors were defined by this machine as negative voltage signals. While at the time there was no standard, as far as I can tell the only reason to do this was out of dickishness. Every other big name game (Space Invaders, Pac-Man etc) used positive volts. And why wouldn't you? It makes no sense to say "Let's use negative." Supposedly later versions of the Unisystem were lucky enough to have an inverter circuit installed that you could switch between them as needed. Mine didn't which meant I needed to build my own.
While I was waiting for all the components for the inverter to arrive, I put the old control panel in a closet and built a new one out of pine. There's probably a lot better ways of doing this but I only have electrical tools and a drill.
Next thing I needed to do was take apart the monitor. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to discharge a CRT, I highly recommend it. It's a lot of fun
While I was installing the inversion circuit, I thought it was a great opportunity to replace all of the capacitors as well since I doubt that's ever been done and is probably responsible for the variations in brightness and clarity I was experiencing earlier. On this picture, capacitors are the tall black things. If you don't know what they are, here's a very brief EE 101. They are one of the fundamental circuit elements. It's purpose is to store charge. In DC circuits they mostly adjust the current over time and in AC they adjust the phase of the current which can be useful for filtration circuits. Now, study differential equations.
Nintendo didn't make putting it together very easy putting things back together but after soldering a few wires together and hacking connectors I got everything working and could play Metal Slug. Just in time too since I'm pretty sure my girlfriend wants our dining table back. Eating on the floor gets tiring.
So what's next? My first priority is to fix the control panel. The hole for Player 1's joystick isn't quote centered properly which makes pressing up barely work. Next thing I will do is mod a Genesis and NES to JAMMA so that they can live in there as well. I bought it as a Mario machine, I think it's appropriate that an NES live in there and the Genesis is perfect for this sort thing. I think I will start modding the Genesis this weekend. Finally, this thing needs to be made more beautiful. The stickers are falling apart and I need to create some kind of overlay for my control panel.
About a month ago, my girlfriend sent me an email about a craigslist listing for a Nintendo VS Mario cabinet that was for a good price. Like many people who battle scarred veterans of the great console war, I have always wanted one I could call my own so without thinking I sent an email to the owner asking if I could go see it.
When I arrived at his house I went into his garage, met his beautiful puppy and saw the game. It had seen better days but overall wasn't in too bad of shape. The worst was the picture seemed to go in and out. I figured this was fixable and next thing I knew I needed to find transport.
The first thing I did was contact some moving companies. If you guys are ever in my situation, never do this. The guy quoted me at $400 which was a lot more than I was spending on the thing. Instead, I did what I should have done first and got a friend to help me with a truck.
I finally got it into my apartment and it looked fantastic.
The plug, however, did not.
It's okay though, that thing scared the hell out of me. I don't remember if it had a ground pin when I got it but it definitely didn't here. The previous owner was nice enough to provide me with a plug he bought to eventually replace it with so I went ahead and did that.
Happily, it survived the journey.
Unfortunately, the image seemed to go in and out and eventually the game reset itself and wouldn't start anymore. It seemed like it was time to get in there and work with it.
One of the first things I noticed, besides far too many dead spiders, was that some jerk lodged his balls deep inside the machine.
I've had a NeoGeo for a while that I was planning on building a supergun for until my soldering iron broke so it seemed like a good idea to me to convert the cabinet to JAMMA.
For those of you who aren't aware of what JAMMA is, it is a standard that was developed by several Japanese arcade producers so that operators could drop in new games with minimal rewiring. It has a monstrous connector that looks this.
While this came out before JAMMA, Nintendo proved early on in their tenure as a video game company that their motto was "Screw Everybody Else." This particular cabinet began its life as a Donkey Kong machine and there are two things about it that make it difficult to work with.
First off, Nintendo decided that rather than adjust the circuitry for the American electrical system it would be easier to add a transformer that converts everything from 120VAC to 100VAC. This means that when I convert it to JAMMA, I will need to work my modern power supply in there so that the monitor is running off of 100VAC and everything else is 120VAC.
Secondly, and most annoyingly, colors were defined by this machine as negative voltage signals. While at the time there was no standard, as far as I can tell the only reason to do this was out of dickishness. Every other big name game (Space Invaders, Pac-Man etc) used positive volts. And why wouldn't you? It makes no sense to say "Let's use negative." Supposedly later versions of the Unisystem were lucky enough to have an inverter circuit installed that you could switch between them as needed. Mine didn't which meant I needed to build my own.
While I was waiting for all the components for the inverter to arrive, I put the old control panel in a closet and built a new one out of pine. There's probably a lot better ways of doing this but I only have electrical tools and a drill.
I think it turned out pretty well though.
The plexiglass cover I was trying to make didn't make it though.
Next thing I needed to do was take apart the monitor. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to discharge a CRT, I highly recommend it. It's a lot of fun
While I was installing the inversion circuit, I thought it was a great opportunity to replace all of the capacitors as well since I doubt that's ever been done and is probably responsible for the variations in brightness and clarity I was experiencing earlier. On this picture, capacitors are the tall black things. If you don't know what they are, here's a very brief EE 101. They are one of the fundamental circuit elements. It's purpose is to store charge. In DC circuits they mostly adjust the current over time and in AC they adjust the phase of the current which can be useful for filtration circuits. Now, study differential equations.
Nintendo didn't make putting it together very easy putting things back together but after soldering a few wires together and hacking connectors I got everything working and could play Metal Slug. Just in time too since I'm pretty sure my girlfriend wants our dining table back. Eating on the floor gets tiring.
So what's next? My first priority is to fix the control panel. The hole for Player 1's joystick isn't quote centered properly which makes pressing up barely work. Next thing I will do is mod a Genesis and NES to JAMMA so that they can live in there as well. I bought it as a Mario machine, I think it's appropriate that an NES live in there and the Genesis is perfect for this sort thing. I think I will start modding the Genesis this weekend. Finally, this thing needs to be made more beautiful. The stickers are falling apart and I need to create some kind of overlay for my control panel.
