A lot of Java, and a little woodwork…

Today I spent about 5/6 hours working on the software available at gMame@Sourceforge – although I haven’t uploaded my changes as they are part way through.  I’m trying to add a lot more error handling so that the new user is not put off by odd error messages just trying to get the thing started.

I’m trying to get to grips with CVS (the version control stuff) so that I can keep my up to date working copy at sourceforge instead of a number of memory stick.

Tonight, when I got it, I had half an hour to install the marquee and the speaker panel, then offered the monitor panel back in.  As pointed out in a previous post, I’ve finished the monitor panel too early – I need to unpick it all and pass it back over the table saw to get the right angles top and bottom.

Next time I get some time on the project (hopefully Thursday morning) I’ll either do the electronics work, or get the monitor panel angled and installed, or hopefully both.

A picture of everything in place (monitor just positioned not installed) to get your appetites wet…

Here comes my artwork…

My brother arrived yesterday afternoon with 2 copies of my big sticky label – – (aka my home made marquee) – it looks great at 60cm by 15cm (2′ by 6″)

I took the 6″ perspex I’d been saving to act as the marquee and carefully applied the marquee art to it – a few attempts later and I have it fairly square. Not bad.

Offered it up to the cabinet. Pants!

The cabinet has been designed for 5″ not 6″ marquee – it’s too big.

I go back down to the workshop, find the 5″ perspex panel I should have found first time, and tried again with the “lucky-he-brought-2″ second sticker. As it’s 6″ there was some to either cut away or fold over – I chose to fold it over the edge – don’t ask me why.

Offered it up to the cabinet. Nice! Will attach today/tomorrow when I carry on with the speaker panel.

Pretty Pictures

I’m lucky that my brother is a printer, and is able to print any artwork I want onto sticky-backed vinyl of any shape and size up to 2m (~6′6″) by any length.

Firstly the marquee – I’ve spent some time surfing the web looking at marquee artwork and not really finding something I like, so, whilst I’m busy doing everything from scratch, why not make my own marquee?

I’ve used GIMP to create a marquee that I like (above) by generating three layers of blue fire, downloading a free font from 1001 free fonts called DueDate and writing the word M.A.M.E. over the top – on reflection, I should have written gMAME (my friends call me G so everything I make or do is G – like my mobile phone (gPhone) my car (gMobile) – you get the idea?!)

I have an idea that I’d really like a large Ken and Ryu (from Street Fighter) on either side of my cabinet – I’ll have to do some more surfing or see if I can commission someone to draw this on the cheap. If not, I’ll have to do a collage of popular arcade images, characters, logos, etc. or do some more interesting things with the blue fire I’ve become rather fond of.