My son's Mame, 1st place

Token420

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My 13 son loaded an old laptop with mame and put it in an extra (Qbert, converted to Goindol) cab I had and entered it in the county school tech fair, and won 1st place! I gave him advice, but he did the all the wire stripping, connections to the Ipac and switches, and the mame & mala configurations. This thing was a huge hit with kids and adults lining up to play. There were only a few games loaded, among them Gyruss, Future Spy, Galaga, Galaga 88. It was really cool watching a group of kids all ooh & aww as my kid showed off his Gyruss skills (last pic). The judges were all tech savvy professionals and some had to interview my son. I was not allowed to be close enough to interfere with the interview but it was awesome watching from a distance as he yanked off the control panel showed them his rats nest of wiring to the ipac and excitedly explained how it all worked.
 

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That's awesome, your kid will be the one everyone remembers from that day. :)

I still remember people made these trivia games at my science fair that you had to touch two metal plates and if the light came on it was the correct answer. Everyone was like in love with those things.
 
Hell yeah! Mad props. And he may have just inspired more kids to get into this bizarre hobby! :D

He needs to sign up on here, now... :rolleyes:
 
That's awesome Ken!



My 13 son loaded an old laptop with mame and put it in an extra (Qbert, converted to Goindol) cab I had and entered it in the county school tech fair, and won 1st place! I gave him advice, but he did the all the wire stripping, connections to the Ipac and switches, and the mame & mala configurations. This thing was a huge hit with kids and adults lining up to play. There were only a few games loaded, among them Gyruss, Future Spy, Galaga, Galaga 88. It was really cool watching a group of kids all ooh & aww as my kid showed off his Gyruss skills (last pic). The judges were all tech savvy professionals and some had to interview my son. I was not allowed to be close enough to interfere with the interview but it was awesome watching from a distance as he yanked off the control panel showed them his rats nest of wiring to the ipac and excitedly explained how it all worked.
 
Nice! I started in the arcade hobby when I was about 13 or 14 - and I started with MAME, building my own MAME machine. It took me months to track down a cabinet. By chance I called a pinball machine collector because I happened to have his card from who-knows-where, and fortunately, yes, he did have an old arcade cabinet - that he was planning on chopping up for firewood. I could have it.

So, I talked my dad into borrowing a truck from one of his friends and we drove out to pick it up. It was a Donkey Kong cabinet, gutted. No sideart, no bezel, but still had the marquee. Got it home and spent the next month rebuilding it.

I still have it. I built a new control panel, pieced together a PC from spare parts, some of which I had to spend a fair amount for, like the motherboard. A Pentium II 233 system was worth real money back then.

The monitor was a challenge, since used 17" CRT monitors went for $150 or so. Found one real cheap that was blurry. Took it apart, found the "FOCUS" control on the flyback and got it looking pretty good.

There was no i-pac at the time, so I hacked up a keyboard.

Even back then, I didn't want to "hack" a classic. Since I'd gotten the cabinet empty in the first place, and had rescued it from being firewood, it wasn't a problem. I also was careful not to make any changes to the cabinet itself - the idea being that if I wanted to track down all the parts (expensive, especially then), I could fix it as Donkey Kong.

The machine worked well for many years, but last year or so, the six gig hard drive died. Still haven't had the time to fix it - this time it's getting a faster computer, and probably a bigger monitor.

Fast forward ten years, and I still had the arcade bug... only with the ability to drive, a job that paid actual money, and someone to borrow a van from. Now I've got a whole bunch of games. Never thought back then that I would actually be able to own dedicated machines.

-Ian
 
Very very cool and not in the least bit illegal.

Don't listen to the dorks here that are throwing mud. Sometimes I totally 'get' why tv's with joysticks were the only friends some people here could ever have.

Wuht??????

What would have been cooler though if the cops busted in the joint, handcuffed your son and arrested him for illegally having those illegal roms. JK:). Hell when I was 13 I probably coundn't even strip a wire. I just knew how to turn stuff on and play.
 
Watch, next year, the kids will spawn about 10 different hellcades trying to compete with your sons success!
 
My 13 son loaded an old laptop with mame and put it in an extra (Qbert, converted to Goindol) cab I had and entered it in the county school tech fair, and won 1st place! I gave him advice, but he did the all the wire stripping, connections to the Ipac and switches, and the mame & mala configurations. This thing was a huge hit with kids and adults lining up to play. There were only a few games loaded, among them Gyruss, Future Spy, Galaga, Galaga 88. It was really cool watching a group of kids all ooh & aww as my kid showed off his Gyruss skills (last pic). The judges were all tech savvy professionals and some had to interview my son. I was not allowed to be close enough to interfere with the interview but it was awesome watching from a distance as he yanked off the control panel showed them his rats nest of wiring to the ipac and excitedly explained how it all worked.

Congrats! hm, this gives me ideas..
 
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