|
HARDWARE
Fortunately, I seem to be very good at accumulating junk, or is it just that I'm bad at throwing things out? Anyway, I had most of this stuff already lying around so it didn't cost anything.
COMPUTER HARDWARE
Pentium 133 (overclocked to 166)
PC Partner VX Motherboard
32MB EDO RAM
Video Excel 4MB S3 Virge Video Card
Sound Galaxy Basic 16 Sound Card
Borrowed ISA Network Card
Zenith 14" Monitor (Thanks Chris!)
Maxtor 250MB Hard Drive
3.5" Floppy Drive
220W Power Supply
OTHER STUFF
2x10W Jaycar Stereo Amplifier Kit
4" 20W RMS Jaycar Car Stereo Speakers
4" 12V Cooling Fan
As you can see, it's all pretty low end stuff by today's standards, so I'm not expecting it to run the more recent games. This doesn't really worry me as I'm more interested in the older stuff anyway. You might have noticed that I didn't include a CDROM. Actually I don't see any need for it. I'm running DOS, MAME and ArcadeOS only, so who needs it?
Sexy shot of otherwise crappy hardware that makes up the guts my MAME box.
Chunky heatsink should help keep overclocked P133 happy.
BORING DETAILS
Motherboard
Right now I'm using a PC Partner VX board that I picked up 2nd hand at the markets for $10. It's pretty ordinary really, but will happily run my P133 at 166 MHz. I did recently have some trouble with random errors on startup. A quick look in the BIOS revealed that the date had reset to 1980, the sign of a dead BIOS battery. I've had no trouble since replacing it. I started out with 16Mb of EDO RAM, but have since upped it to 32Mb, which helps out with the larger games.
CPU
This is just a well used Pentium 133, deprived of a peaceful retirement. I was careful to get one that didn't feature Intel's first foray into multiplier locking. The heatsink and fan are designed for later K6s, so have no trouble keeping things cool.
Video Card
I was going to use a really crappy old Diamond Stealth 64 1Mb card, until I did some benchmarking with it. MAME really does need a decent video card and performance really suffered with this one. All I had lying around instead was this 4Mb S3 Virge that got too hot and occasionally scrambled characters in Windows. It's performed quite well in MAME so I can't complain.
Sound Card
Another refugee from the dreaded back room, a Sound Galaxy Basic 16. It's not a wonderful card and fails to initialise about 1 time in 10. I think I'll ditch it for an SB16.
UPDATE: I've now done this and am much happier with the sound quality of the SB16.
Network Card
A cheap ISA network card borrowed from my brother. Handy to get things set up but once the system is configured nicely I'll give it back.
Hard Drive
Yet another cast off, this 250Mb Maxtor is a little noisy, but what else would I do with it? Someone's got to make use of this stuff.
Monitor
Quite an interesting one this. It's a Zenith ZCM-1492, I believe one of the first truly flat screen monitors made. It has a fantastic picture and coated screen for a really black background, but will only do 640 x 480, so isn't much good for today's Windows users. It is also The World's Heaviest 14" Monitor! The flat screen may not be authentic for arcade games but it sure looks good, and already has a black surround. However, because it isn't a true multisync, some video modes used by MAME just didn't work. So, I moved to AdvanceMAME. AdvanceMAME is basically DOS MAME with extra video support for TVs, arcade monitors, and oddballs like mine. It includes MV, a video configuration program that allows you to configure and even create your own custom video modes to suit your hardware. It takes a little head scratching to figure it out, but works brilliantly. If you have any major video problems I suggest you try it. In case you haven't yet read the cabinet section, I'll repeat the warning about monitors:
As you may have read elsewhere, mounting monitors in orientations they weren't designed for should be done at your own risk. I have had no problems myself with my monitor, but this doesn't mean that your monitor won't explode, destroy your home and kill your goldfish. In any case, I wouldn't leave my machine turned on while unattended and recommend that you don't either. Also, unless you know what you're doing, do NOT open up the case of your monitor. They have extremely large static charges in them that can stay there for years and can easily kill you. Enough already.
|
