teh Forum

I've gone and posted one of your Arkeg pics on another forum, and it's gotten quite the positive response. I saw another picture of a cabinet that someone built (it looked like it used similar plans,) so I was prompted to post our projects. People definitely liked the beer functionality. Now I have to update the Joymaster to include two optical encoder sockets on the front. This would allow two small steering wheels to be plugged in (Super Sprint style,) or two knobs for spinners. I was thinking of having two sockets (much like a socket wrench,) with the little snappy-ball thing, connected via belt or gears to two rotary encoders. Then you could snap in a wheel or knob, or any other twisty-motion-thing. I want to use endless rotaries, so you can give them a good whirling too. How's the Arkeg holding up anyway?

Endless rotaries are key! Restriction will only lead to a constrained society of retro gaming, which goes against everything mankind has been working towards throughout its entire history, freedom! The arkeg is holding steady and unfinished. If I didn’t incorporate a kegorator into the plans half way through building the thing, I’d be done and drunk every night. Such is not the case, however. I figured since a full size 15 gallon keg could fit by itself in the base of the cabinet, I’d have no problem finding a mini fridge big enough to hold a half size pony keg, yet small enough to fit in the cabinet…ohh how this was a bad assumption to make during production. The only mini fridges available that are big enough to hold a pony keg are two inches too big to fit in the cab. So what can I do about this? Well I can rip off the base with the casters and some how extend the height of the cabinet two inches, or I can sell the original arkeg and build a new one…two inches taller.

I saw an idea for the arkeg that was never executed that you MUST implement into the joymaster, the seth tool would come in handy on this one. What if you could somehow install little LEDs above each button in your CP that would light up to indicate which buttons are to be used for a specific game once it is loaded? EVERY TIME somebody loads a game on the arkeg, I have to wait around 5 – 10 seconds for them to ask “what buttons do I use?†But if there were simple indicators, I would have [(5 – 10 seconds) * every game ever loaded on the arkeg] more time to do what I choose. It makes sense that special software would have to be written, but I’m not sure how it would be incorporated. Maybe added to the mame code, or perhaps you could use microcontrollers to control the LEDs based on simple data files that are loaded when mame loads a game. What say you?

p.s. ryland, would you care to explain why myspace is taking sooo long to load my blog? Hmm hmmm? What did you do this time, you little jerk!

nevermind, it works.

You could cover the inside with metal flashing, and take the refrigeration components out of the fridge, and put them in the cabinet with the keg. Might work.

indeed it may and if I stop playing it for more than two seconds, I may decide to get back to work on it.

HEY, J3RK!

kick me down a link to the page you posted pics of our projects, would ja? I'd like to see what people are saying.

I shall look for it shortly. It was in the HardOCP forums. A guy was asking how powerful a system he'd need to run MAME, and a couple of really stupid games. A bunch of us jumped in with pictures of what would be absolute overkill for him. I think there are a few comments for each person that posted pictures. I should bump it back up to the front page. Here is the thread: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1 ... ge=1&pp=20

It needs a bit more momentum. The problem at HardOCP, is that everyone *pretends* to be completely against all forms of piracy, so you always get someone hopping into a thread like this, saying "isn't that illegal?" <----This is those people, asking if it's legal. So anyway, yeah, I should think of something to add to the thread to bump it back up.