Pachinko Foul-Up!

Well I ordered 1200 Pachinko balls via eBay and when the box arrived, it only had 5 balls in it! I guess they all fell out of a small hole on the side or something! The seller said they would resend the order out but of course it will be a good week or two before they arrive :(

Virtual Music Jukebox

For anyone interested, the software used to manage your audio files on your video jukebox can be found here.

Costs List

Scott Glazer of MameRoom has given me permission to post my costs list. When I finally purchase everything, I will put it up!

Plans and Templates

I am still awaiting my templates but I went ahead and printed out the very detailed instructions I purchased from MAMERoom. It is a pretty huge document and is very easy to read/follow.

I contacted their sales department to find out if they would mind my posting a costs list and will post it if they approve.

My GameEx Theme

Night was kind enough to post my theme on his website. Here is a picture of the main page. I have plans to redo some of the other pages (Media and Emulators) but I am probably going to start a new one to be used solely for my media PC that is used with my television.

Absolutely the BEST MAME FrontEnd

Just want to say a bit about GameEx. GameEx is by far the very best MAME FrontEnd available on the web! Tom Spiers has really put together something that is tailored to the customer. Through his website and attached forum, he takes requests and updates the software to include just about anything you might like with it. Additionally, a user known as 'Headkaze' has authored some accompanying software to allow each user to create their own themes to further customize the FrontEnd.

I have a MAMERoom Ultimate Arcade II cabinet that I put together and customized and I was able to tailor a very specific FrontEnd using GameEx for it.

I also have a media PC attached to my 42" Plasma HDTV and I have tailored a complete media platform for that as well. Here are some of the features that you get with GameEx (It is free BTW with a nag screen that goes away with a small donation):

GameEx is a graphical DirectX based front-end for MAME, Zinc, Daphne, PC Games, and all command line based game emulators, along with being a complete Home Theatre PC solution. The original goal was for it to be used on Windows Media Center as a plug in for playing games and for Arcade Cabinets although will run on Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista. If you have Media Center and don't need a games plug-in, GameEx still adds additional features including Internet Radio, News Reader, DVD's on disk, and Karaoke.

Additional themes can be downloaded by an affiliate user (Night) at this site

Software Purchase

Went ahead and ordered the necessary software:

Virtual Music Jukebox is known as the industry standard when it comes to a true Jukebox Experience. VMJ is designed as the ultimate MP3 Jukebox Software that gives the true look and feel of a modern, bar style jukebox right on your desktop. VMJ even offers many of the same options that you'll find in the popular digital jukeboxes at your local bar or pub.

New Pachinko Machine

I have ordered through eBay a new Pachinko machine! I am going to surprise my daughter with the Woody Woodpecker Pachinko pictured above.

I found a page online that describes it in detail. As I install it and get it up and running in my home, I will post about how we enjoy it in our home.

Purchases

Here are the speakers I got for the sound system. They are standard 4" Shielded speakers. I also got 2 grills to accompany them. I just need to rip the amplifyer out of some PC speakers to make them jive with the system.

Purchases

I ordered a number of different illuminated pushbuttons from HAPP. In respect to MAMERoom.com, I won't post the part numbers or amounts needed (You will have to buy the plans yourself for that!) but I will tell you that HAPP is one of the best places to buy anything necessary to build any type of arcade component machine. I think with the illuminated buttons, this will look very nice!

Purchases

Today I went ahead and ordered some stuff online. I ordered the virtual music jukebox marquee through MameMarquees LLC at a very reasonable cost (I will total the cost sheet when the project items have all been purchased).

I also went to HAPP Controls and ordered all of the pushbuttons I will need. I already have a spare IPAC so I don't need that. Now all I really need is the hardware and I am off to Lowes tomorrow to get what I need.

Unfortunately I will have to have the MDF and Laminate sheets delivered at the cost of $59.00 which is their current local delivery rate. Otherwise, I should be able to take everything home with me tomorrow and start preparing my work area to get this thing going.

New Project Started!

I have decided to build a MameRoom Virtual Jukebox! As I progress through this project, I will post pictures and details.

So far, I already have all the necessary internal components to build this. I just need to buy the buttons from HAPP controls.

I ordered the plans and the templates (Should make it easier to cut the wood) and will post cost lists as I go through this.

More information and plans can be found here.