Here is the background story and the reasoning that I did this. I had originally planned on buying an arcade machine. I had heard of M.A.M.E., but had never tried it out personally, and had no clue that people were building new cabinets or converting old ones to be a strictly M.A.M.E. machine. One day while surfing eBay for an arcade cabinet, I found someone who was selling their M.A.M.E. cabinet online, and instantly knew that I had to have something similar. I considered buying his, because his had everything, PLUS a working dreamcast inside, That was sort of a clincher for me. Being able to play all of these great old games, PLUS the newer games as well. Only problem I had was that this machine on eBay was very expensive, and I knew absolutely nothing about woodworking or electronics. Luckily, this auction on eBay had a link to his personal website (gone now) that explained how he had built it, and links to other projects that were similar to his own. So after learning a few things, and exploring other peoples websites, I started to get the itch, and the notion that I could do one myself. Then I found the site arcadecontrols.com - a vast knowledge bank of hundreds of people who had done this already. I was sold. I knew from the beginning that I wanted a 4 player machine because I have a friend who has a 2 player Neo-Geo, and there are always at least 3 people there, so one person is always the odd man out. Plus, I wanted 4 player controls for the Dreamcast as well. I knew that I couldn't build one myself, so converting an old machine was definately the way to go. I then started searching eBay again looking for the perfect arcade cabinet.

The cabinet I found was a used Sunsetriders 4 player cabinet that I bought off of eBay. Everything came working. Monitor (with slight burn in from another game but I am unsure what game that was), coin mechs, and sound. After buying it, I needed to store it in a friends garage because I didn't have the room for it at the time. Luckily, I moved to a much larger apartment 2 months later, and could finally start working on it. It worked out great because I had the movers swing around my friends garage and they moved it for a small extra charge. Saved me from having to rent a truck and a dolly. First thing I did was clean it out because the inside was a mess.

I planned on replacing all of the joysticks and buttons, and build a new control panel from scratch. I ordered all of the buttons from Happs Controls, along with two very sturdy cup holders, and two metal stools. I also ordered an I-PAC 4 from Ultimarc, and the brand new ArcadeVGA card. New locks and keys and MDF from Lowes, paint and lexan from the Do It Yourself Center, and all of the wires, quick disconnects, and everything else from Fry's.

First thing to do was to get the video to work. Because I was using the arcade monitor that came with the cab, I quickly learned of the problems that come with working with 15khz monitors. Since I didn't have the computer yet, I began by hooking up my Dreamcast. I bought the Performance VGA box which is just awesome. Since the Dreamcast can output at 15khz natively, all I had to do was open up the VGA adapter and cut one little wire to get it to work with the monitor. I went with the Performance box because it has a pass through, so when I have my computer turned on, it will display the computer and use its sound. But once I turn on my Dreamcast, it automatically switches to that, no hassle. I cut a monitor cable, and soldered the wires to the monitor. I now had the Dreamcast working on the monitor.

Second was the sound. I took my old yamaha computer speakers, and placed them above the monitor. I mounted them to the sides, pointing down. Then I drilled many little holes directly beneath them so the sound could pass through. The subwoofer I placed in the bottom of the cabinet, underneath the coin mechs.

During all of this, I bought 2 cheap Playstation controllers from Electronics Boutique, and soldered to them wires. These wires would connect to my buttons, and then attach to some Playstation to Dreamcast adapters. I decided to go this route just for the future because there are Playstation adapters to any game console. I learned how to solder, and didn't ruin the controllers, so I guess I did a good job.

I roughed out how I wanted my control panel next. I wanted it to be very clean, without a lot of the extra buttons many people put on their control panels. 4 players, each with a competition joystick, 6 buttons, a coin button, and a player start. I used 6 buttons per player for console support. For playing 4 player Dreamcast, SNES, N64, etc. No trackball and no spinner. If I really want these, then I will make another control panel and make them swappable. I have no plans of doing this at the moment. I kept the original 'box' of the control panel, and simply made the top. It is much bigger than the original and hangs out in front, but this is what I wanted. It adds more room for your wrists to rest on, plus it gives you room for your legs when sitting on a stool. I really like this way, and am surpised that I haven't seen anybody else do it this way because it is so comfortable. I measured and cut the panel top in my apartment patio, and drilled all of the holes. I then attached it to the cabinet. So far so good.

It was at this time that we decided to have a housewarming party for the new apartment, so I really needed to get this thing at least playable by then. It didn't leave me with much time at all. I quickly sanded and painted the entire cabinet, and painted it with glossy black latex paint. I painted it with 3 coats, sanding between each coat. It was kind of overkill because it was already black when I bought it, but I used plastic wood to clean up all of the scratches and dings and whatnot. While the paint was drying, I started on the wiring of the control panel. Since I still didn't have the I-pac or ArcadeVGA, I only needed the Dreamcast to work. I quickly did the wiring for players 1 and 2, with a little help from my friend Dan, and finally got it working less than 1 hour before the start of the party. The paint was still a little wet, and the wiring job was extremely sloppy - but it worked, and everyone was amazed at it. I printed out the marquee on 3 sheets of paper, and simply taped them together. There was nothing on the control panel except slighty wet black paint. But people were playing Sould Calibur, Ikaruga, and Rez all night on it.

The next day, I took out all of the controls and the wiring. I really wanted to finish the control panel, but I needed to print the artwork and cut the lexan first. I placed the lexan between 2 pieces of scrap MDF to keep it from breaking, and cut it and drilled the holes. I lucked out and got my artwork printed and laminated for free at my girlfriends work. The colors were a little off, and there were some air bubbles and smears from laminating it before the ink was dry, but it was free and I can live with it. I added one more button to the back of the control box to serve as the exit button. It's not on the control panel so it will never get accidentally pressed. Finally the control panel was competed except for the wiring.

I should mention that I did have the computer through all of this. A friend gave me his old computer - a 1Ghz Athlon with 1 gig of ram, motherboard and case. I had already bought the video card, and then bought a Sound Blaster 16 PCI card. I put it together, put Windows XP on it, and began setting it up. Since I had never played around with M.A.M.E. before, I had to start from scratch. I started with M.A.M.E., and set it up with the front end Lazarus. I didn't want anyone to know that it was just a computer in it, so a front end would hide that fact. After much confusion and headaches, I finally got Lazarus set up. I had also set up zSNES, VirtualBoyAdvance, Daphne, and Visual Pinball. I finally moved it into the machine. I then started re-wiring the control panel to a pair of db25 cables. 1 pair for for players 1 and 2, and the second for players 3 and 4. I wired a matching pair to the I-Pac, and another to the hacked Playstation controllers. This way, I can simply unplug the db25 connecters and plug them into the other connector if I wish to switch from the PC to the Dreamcast of vice versa.

I now had it fully working, and little work went into it for quite a long time. I spent a lot of time further customizing the front end however. I later bought a Bits Limited SmartStrip, which is just a "smart" power strip. It detects if power is going to the master plug - and if it is, it turns the rest of the plugs on. The computer is plugged into the master plug, and the cabinet and speakers are the slaves. I then placed a small momentary button on the top of the arcade and wired this directly onto the computer motherboard. Now I had a 1 button on/off system. I have also added other emulators for systems such as the Atari 2600, NES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Turbo Graphix 16, and Nintendo 64. I have added a wireless bridge to the computer so I can connect to the internet for downloading of new files, or surfing the web on the cabinet. I have also switched to a new frontend - MameWah. It is much easier to use than Lazarus, although I do plan on testing out the successor to Lazarus - Dragon King someday.

Other things on the "To Do List" are the wiring of the coin mechs to the I-pac so that it will accept money. Also to incorporate ePSXe for Playstation emulation, and if money becomes available - a new monitor.

I knew absolutely nothing on how to do this in the beginning. Everything I learned, I learned online. Just research, and plan plan plan. I could have done a few things differently, but in the end I am very happy with my machine.

By the way - I decided on the name "Arcade Zero". I wanted my machine to be generic in a way - not limiting the artwork to only capcom characters, or classic characters, but sort of a blank machine that could run anything. It is also sort of side reference to quite a few anime's. Everything "Zero" is always the prototype, but is also usually the best by far.