Candy Dino King Cab to Mini Candy Neo-Geo Custom JAMMA

[Zaki]

£1200+.

They're double that now, D

10 years ago they were about £600 brand new.

[Escape-To-88]

[MENTION=4553]Escape-To-88[/MENTION], do you have a plan for how you are going to play this?
When I play Dino King with my son, I start crouching, then my back aches, so I kneel down, then my knees hurt so I sit on my bum, then my bum aches!

I'd advise raising it from the floor on a pedestal and getting a small chair, or you're going to knack your back/knees playing this!

I played one for a an hour or two the other weekend on a stool, feels fine. I have mild lower back issues too, didn't feel uncomfy.

[Escape-To-88]

I played on that DinoKing GnG conversion at PlayExpo 2013. I thought it was pretty nice, I’m not the tallest person in the world but I found it pretty comfortable.

https://youtu.be/YIloo9_P_OU

Yup, that's Olly's old machine. Bought mine from him.

[Asura]

I played one for a an hour or two the other weekend on a stool, feels fine. I have mild lower back issues too, didn't feel uncomfy.

Drummer's stools work well.

[QualityChimp]

I played one for a an hour or two the other weekend on a stool, feels fine. I have mild lower back issues too, didn't feel uncomfy.

OK cool, I just wanted to make you aware before you put your back out and had to explain you were off work because you'd been playing too much on your tiny arcade cab!

[Zaki]

All the ladies call him Dino King! Beats being called "mini cute"

[Escape-To-88]

All the power now wired in and firing up. Coin down wired and working.


Working out the button sizes. The final panel won't be made of paper, or have my hand holding it in place permanently.

[Escape-To-88]

Well managed to get it all up and running ahead of schedule today (sorry about the rotation on the shots)

[Escape-To-88]

Well after 6 days of sorting the software side out by moving to Linux and Groovy MAME, I did a cheap and dirty mock up minus perspex with some bits I got from the printer today and I hacked into with a blade! Gives you an idea of what the final bezel will potentially look like Massive thanks to [MENTION=1500]zipper[/MENTION] for the bezel template. Control Panel Overlay is on the way too!

[mmmonkey]

That's coming on nicely. The marquee is looking good and I like the neo coloured buttons :-)

Mind if I ask if there's any advantages to running Groovy MAME on Linux, compared with Windows? Aside from cost of the OS I guess.

Edit - oh wait - yeah - Pi!

[J0e Musashi]

Seimitsu parts? Well done if so. Just like a real MVS unit.

[Escape-To-88]

Seimitsu parts? Well done if so. Just like a real MVS unit.

Indeed mate Buttons are a little stiffer (oo er) than Sanwa, but I like them, and the a range of colours is better too. Seimitsu parts on my hot -swappable 2-player panel too (not yet finished)

That's coming on nicely. The marquee is looking good and I like the neo coloured buttons :-)

Mind if I ask if there's any advantages to running Groovy MAME on Linux, compared with Windows? Aside from cost of the OS I guess.

Edit - oh wait - yeah - Pi!

Because Windows was an utter bastard!

I can boot Linux off a USB stick in a Micro ATX board, using a Radeon x600, which runs everything perfectly - even Tekken 3 runs for example. I spent ages getting Windows 7 to boot off a USB stick and got it all installed with CRT Emu drivers and it refused to sync to my Dino King no matter how I tried. Even tried an Optiplex-style Packard which worked on my PVM but refused to work with the Dino King monitor. The monitors are utterly bizarre (they're a Sanwa monitor), when you speak to people who have converted everyone has a different experience. For example I could only get a perfect picture when I removed the D-sub head from the monitor lead, there's no rhyme or reason to this and how I've connected now seems exactly the same. Equally some people have plugged the d-sub from the monitor into a Radeon 6450 (like Zipper) and get a picture straight away. I had nothing but grief over 3 different Radeons. In the end I made my own monitor lead from the JST connector to R,G,B,Hsync,Vsync and Ground and connected via Vsync, R,G,B (with Hsync in the blanking terminal) into an Ultimarc video amp - the very same video amp that's on the JPAC - but it doesn't like the JPAC for video!? Anywho, got a beautiful picture now! Actually prefer it to the PVM, but boy was it puzzling! I'm pretty certain I could get a picture eventually with more arsing around with Windows but why would I bother now in a way. The only downside is I can't run Bluetooth headphones from Linux - that I can figure out, so I'm always using the Dino King speaker. I could potentially rig something up of course.

I went with GroovyMAME in the end over a Pi, purely because there were a few more things I could do with GM. I found it more customisable and having in-game settings for brightness and sound is great for minor tweaks. The cheats are useful for unlocking characters like Anita in Marvel Superheroes too, for example. The obvious one is I can run stuff like Tekken 2, 3 and Night Slashers on a PC, a Pi isn't yet powerful enough. I can also get all the Taito F3 stuff running fullspeed. I'd also argue that the video mods are a lot more tried and tested, so less surprises than a Pi setup. That said I've still got my homemade Pi to jamma and it is great for the cost and I preferred my setup to a Pi2Jamma for example. I can also run the console stuff on Linux, and have it set up to run Japanese Megadrive roms for example, which I could do easily on the Pi but not on Windows I found.

[Colin]

Awesome work so far.

[zipper]

Looking forward to seeing this finished - as I'm sure you are too!

[mmmonkey]

Just spotted your reply to me. Cheers, lots of useful info there, and you’re right, it seems puzzling that different people have varying levels of success getting the monitor to work!