Kingdom Cronos Arcade- Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things



The EmuChrist cab began as a dream way back in about '97 or '98 when I got back into video game emulation during it's golden age period. Back then though, the ways and means of going about getting an actual arcade feel meant complicated hacks of mice and monitors. I was really set that I wanted a high resolution monitor to also experience some of the newer arcade PC ports and other games like Madden. So I was patient... And by 2002 a PC lightgun finally was released by ActLabs, Arcade/PC monitor hybrids in a large 27" size became available from several different companies, and there were even USB arcade style trackballs and spinners. Furthermore a port of MAME was also available (Analog+ Mame) which allowed multiple mice to be hooked up so you could enjoy multiplayer games such as Marble Madness, Warlords, Blasteroids, and Forgotten Worlds! So the time to act was now... Or should I say... Then! To pat myself on the back... This was to my knowledge of mucho mucho surfing around, the first dedicated arcade cabinet to feature such a control scheme with a 4 player panel with a trackball, dual spinners, and dual guns... And IMO with so much more than a lot of "frankenpanels" it doesn't come off looking like total crap.I also wowed a lot of people when I basically had a working machine in about 10 days from start when people were taking months to build something with a lot less bells and whistles. It took a month to complete as shown only because I had to wait for the side artwork to arive. Granted though the control panel (CP) itself is big at about 22" deep and 48" across and someone once gave it the clever and humorous nickname of the Salad Bar. But actually it's not much bigger than a lot of the Midway multi player panels found in arcades from the 90's like Rampage World Tour and NBA Jam! A lot of thought went into it, more so than any other part of the machine, and it's the single aspect of the cabinet I recieve the most feedback and questions about. So even though the old site is gone... I'll cover what I think is important to mention regarding this machine's construction, and answer the most common questions I recieved regarding it. I have more pics but The Emuchrist cab has had a makeover planned for about a year now. Once I finish up the DarkStar project I'll be getting to that, so no need to post any moldy pics at this point in time I feel.
A Vision Pro 27" SVGA Monitor with a universal arcade mount. It pulls a legit 800x600 resolution and operates at 60hz. It is rumored to be the same as the Betson equivalent and I'd have to agree having seen the convergence probs in the upper right corner from a poor degaussing coil set. After 4 years of ownership, I would buy another of these although you should have a degaussing coil handy. Mine needed it upon first arriving... Then was fine until six months ago when a lighting storm struck and needed another run with the coil. Be advised that due to the frequncy you can not use an Ultimarc Arcade VGA card with this monitor. I use an ATI Radeon 9700. I went with this monitor because I also wanted to jam some PC games like House Of The Dead 2, Virtua Tennis, Madden, Pac Man Adventures In Time, ETC, ETC. Two SlikStik Tornado Spinners One 3" Happ USB Trackball backlit by a superbright red LED mod. Two PC USB ActLabs lightguns. First Gen. Two TopFire 8-way joysticks with seven total buttons not including coin or start. Two Super 8-way joysticks with 4 buttons each not including coin or start. The box is a Dell Dimension 4300. Some said it couldn't be upgraded easily! WRONG! Sports a 2.8 Pentium 4 up from an original 1.5ghz P4. 512 mb of memory. As mentioned a Radeon 128mb Radeon. 350w PSU. Two 120gig hard drives. For MAME games, I use several builds of MAME usually through the 3D Arcade/Emulaxian frontend. To run the multiple optical controllers such as the spinners lightguns so more than one can play at the same time with these devices. I use MAME Analog+ Build .69 and .71 (Just for Carnevil). The Keyboard encoder used is an IPAC4 from Ultimarc. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VENDOR! Before I had posted on the old site that I had a problem with it and never heard back from Andy at Ultimarc. Once Andy heard of this he pulled double duty to get a hold of me to make sure everything was cool... It was at that point! And it was my bad not a defect with the device. I probably should've shot him another email or two before opening my mouth on that as well! There Andy... I owed ya that one from way back! LOL! I use a self powered USB hub to run the trackball and guns, then I have a slot left for a gamepad or whatever.
Q: Why did you go with that control layout? Most people with 4 player cabs construct the outside stick layout at angles instead of straight across. A: Mostly for dual player games that use dual sticks like Smash TV, Total Carnage, Vindicators, etc! If you take good notice, those who angle their sticks on the outer edges and move them up bit... They basically screw the ability to play these games with two people! It's because the directions of the sticks aren't in a straight line to one another. You could still play the games... But it would be all f*cked up feeling and you probably could never master it. When building this cab I went for functionality above looks. Q: Wouldn't it look better to have the control panel have a little shape to it rather than regtangular? A: Absolutely! In fact it's on the agenda for the makeover this machine is going to recieve. When I first built this cab I had serious plans to add in another 2 trackballs for a total of 3. In order to make room for this future add on.... The CP had to be shaped as a rectangle. But as time wore on, no one wants to play Rampart or Marble Madness these days. So dropping $200-300 bucks to do this really does seem wasteful. I plan to redo the cp shape much like a HotRod. Q: After some time playing on it. Is there anything you would change with your control layout? A: Besides redoing the shape of the CP's top piece as I just mentioned. There is but ONE thing I would change! When playing strong rolling motion type games like Golden Tee, Shuffleshot, and World Class Bowling.... I have found the player 1 spinner which resides above the trackball can break a nail or jam a finger! Playing games like Centipede and Missle Command are totally fine though! But I would like to get different spinner tops that are about a 1/4" less high, replace the 1/8" plexi top with a thinner Lexan material, and raise the mounting position of the spinner about 1/2" (Which will actual be to a level line with the joystick), while dropping the trackball about an inch. This should fix the problem, or in the very least make a broken nail a much rarer occurence!
Use Plywood! The debate does not still wage on! If you use MDF you do so because your a cheap bastard. Hey that's your perogative! But please don't attempt to justify your cheapness by making uneducated and/or stubborn claims to the contrary that MDF is a sturdier material! MDF is sawdust which is compressed densely and held together with glue! It weighs much more than playwood (Even OakPly), will begin to dissolve if even a spec of water touches it, and is not as easy to work with nor as strong as plywood. MDF will dull blades quickly and also it's almost impossible to patch with filler because of the moisture content. I recommend birch plywood because of it's weight and softer grain which will spare your tools and time! If your going for paint or stain use the more expensive furniture grade or else you'll just spend more in sandpaper trying to get the rough out enough for the finish. If your using laminate or plan on doing filler as an overlay for custom shaping... A cheaper grade is totally fine... Just make sure you sand a bit to get any loose grain off. One of the most common of the big frustrating mistakes I hear cab builders mention is that the sides of their cab don't match up! When you need to cut identical pieces such as the cabinet sides... Clamp the pieces together, draw your pattern on top, make the straight cuts with a circular saw, and finish any curvatures or tight angles with a jigsaw. This will guarantee the closet possible uniform match, and is safe as long as you have 1/2" of excess blade coming through the bottom of the cut. I have done it with only 1/4" but you increase the chance of a kickback.... So if your feeling ballsy, do so at your own risk and at least make sure you maintain a tight grip throughout your cuts! BE PATIENT! This applies to all areas of cab building. Think things out, then double, and even triple think them out. When cutting with a hand tool such as a router, jigsaw, or circular saw... Go at a comfortable and even pace for you and keep a firm grip on the tool at all time. Patience especially applies to finish work! Take the time to patch and sand before you paint or else it'll show in the end result. Several light coats of finish are better than one heavy coat!

The EmuChrist cab began as a dream way back in about '97 or '98 when I got back into video game emulation during it's golden age period. Back then though, the ways and means of going about getting an actual arcade feel meant complicated hacks of mice and monitors. I was really set that I wanted a high resolution monitor to also experience some of the newer arcade PC ports and other games like Madden. So I was patient... And by 2002 a PC lightgun finally was released by ActLabs, Arcade/PC monitor hybrids in a large 27" size became available from several different companies, and there were even USB arcade style trackballs and spinners. Furthermore a port of MAME was also available (Analog+ Mame) which allowed multiple mice to be hooked up so you could enjoy multiplayer games such as Marble Madness, Warlords, Blasteroids, and Forgotten Worlds! So the time to act was now... Or should I say... Then!

To pat myself on the back... This was to my knowledge of mucho mucho surfing around, the first dedicated arcade cabinet to feature such a control scheme with a 4 player panel with a trackball, dual spinners, and dual guns... And IMO with so much more than a lot of "frankenpanels" it doesn't come off looking like total crap.I also wowed a lot of people when I basically had a working machine in about 10 days from start when people were taking months to build something with a lot less bells and whistles. It took a month to complete as shown only because I had to wait for the side artwork to arive. Granted though the control panel (CP) itself is big at about 22" deep and 48" across and someone once gave it the clever and humorous nickname of the Salad Bar. But actually it's not much bigger than a lot of the Midway multi player panels found in arcades from the 90's like Rampage World Tour and NBA Jam! A lot of thought went into it, more so than any other part of the machine, and it's the single aspect of the cabinet I recieve the most feedback and questions about. So even though the old site is gone... I'll cover what I think is important to mention regarding this machine's construction, and answer the most common questions I recieved regarding it.

I have more pics but The Emuchrist cab has had a makeover planned for about a year now. Once I finish up the DarkStar project I'll be getting to that, so no need to post any moldy pics at this point in time I feel.

A Vision Pro 27" SVGA Monitor with a universal arcade mount. It pulls a legit 800x600 resolution and operates at 60hz. It is rumored to be the same as the Betson equivalent and I'd have to agree having seen the convergence probs in the upper right corner from a poor degaussing coil set. After 4 years of ownership, I would buy another of these although you should have a degaussing coil handy. Mine needed it upon first arriving... Then was fine until six months ago when a lighting storm struck and needed another run with the coil. Be advised that due to the frequncy you can not use an Ultimarc Arcade VGA card with this monitor. I use an ATI Radeon 9700. I went with this monitor because I also wanted to jam some PC games like House Of The Dead 2, Virtua Tennis, Madden, Pac Man Adventures In Time, ETC, ETC.

Two SlikStik Tornado Spinners

One 3" Happ USB Trackball backlit by a superbright red LED mod.

Two PC USB ActLabs lightguns. First Gen.

Two TopFire 8-way joysticks with seven total buttons not including coin or start.

Two Super 8-way joysticks with 4 buttons each not including coin or start.

The box is a Dell Dimension 4300. Some said it couldn't be upgraded easily! WRONG! Sports a 2.8 Pentium 4 up from an original 1.5ghz P4. 512 mb of memory. As mentioned a Radeon 128mb Radeon. 350w PSU. Two 120gig hard drives.

For MAME games, I use several builds of MAME usually through the 3D Arcade/Emulaxian frontend. To run the multiple optical controllers such as the spinners lightguns so more than one can play at the same time with these devices. I use MAME Analog+ Build .69 and .71 (Just for Carnevil).

The Keyboard encoder used is an IPAC4 from Ultimarc. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VENDOR! Before I had posted on the old site that I had a problem with it and never heard back from Andy at Ultimarc. Once Andy heard of this he pulled double duty to get a hold of me to make sure everything was cool... It was at that point! And it was my bad not a defect with the device. I probably should've shot him another email or two before opening my mouth on that as well! There Andy... I owed ya that one from way back! LOL!

I use a self powered USB hub to run the trackball and guns, then I have a slot left for a gamepad or whatever.

Q: Why did you go with that control layout? Most people with 4 player cabs construct the outside stick layout at angles instead of straight across.

A: Mostly for dual player games that use dual sticks like Smash TV, Total Carnage, Vindicators, etc! If you take good notice, those who angle their sticks on the outer edges and move them up bit... They basically screw the ability to play these games with two people! It's because the directions of the sticks aren't in a straight line to one another. You could still play the games... But it would be all f*cked up feeling and you probably could never master it. When building this cab I went for functionality above looks.

Q: Wouldn't it look better to have the control panel have a little shape to it rather than regtangular?

A: Absolutely! In fact it's on the agenda for the makeover this machine is going to recieve. When I first built this cab I had serious plans to add in another 2 trackballs for a total of 3. In order to make room for this future add on.... The CP had to be shaped as a rectangle. But as time wore on, no one wants to play Rampart or Marble Madness these days. So dropping $200-300 bucks to do this really does seem wasteful. I plan to redo the cp shape much like a HotRod.

Q: After some time playing on it. Is there anything you would change with your control layout?

A: Besides redoing the shape of the CP's top piece as I just mentioned. There is but ONE thing I would change! When playing strong rolling motion type games like Golden Tee, Shuffleshot, and World Class Bowling.... I have found the player 1 spinner which resides above the trackball can break a nail or jam a finger! Playing games like Centipede and Missle Command are totally fine though! But I would like to get different spinner tops that are about a 1/4" less high, replace the 1/8" plexi top with a thinner Lexan material, and raise the mounting position of the spinner about 1/2" (Which will actual be to a level line with the joystick), while dropping the trackball about an inch. This should fix the problem, or in the very least make a broken nail a much rarer occurence!

Use Plywood! The debate does not still wage on! If you use MDF you do so because your a cheap bastard. Hey that's your perogative! But please don't attempt to justify your cheapness by making uneducated and/or stubborn claims to the contrary that MDF is a sturdier material! MDF is sawdust which is compressed densely and held together with glue! It weighs much more than playwood (Even OakPly), will begin to dissolve if even a spec of water touches it, and is not as easy to work with nor as strong as plywood. MDF will dull blades quickly and also it's almost impossible to patch with filler because of the moisture content. I recommend birch plywood because of it's weight and softer grain which will spare your tools and time! If your going for paint or stain use the more expensive furniture grade or else you'll just spend more in sandpaper trying to get the rough out enough for the finish. If your using laminate or plan on doing filler as an overlay for custom shaping... A cheaper grade is totally fine... Just make sure you sand a bit to get any loose grain off.

One of the most common of the big frustrating mistakes I hear cab builders mention is that the sides of their cab don't match up! When you need to cut identical pieces such as the cabinet sides... Clamp the pieces together, draw your pattern on top, make the straight cuts with a circular saw, and finish any curvatures or tight angles with a jigsaw. This will guarantee the closet possible uniform match, and is safe as long as you have 1/2" of excess blade coming through the bottom of the cut. I have done it with only 1/4" but you increase the chance of a kickback.... So if your feeling ballsy, do so at your own risk and at least make sure you maintain a tight grip throughout your cuts!

BE PATIENT! This applies to all areas of cab building. Think things out, then double, and even triple think them out. When cutting with a hand tool such as a router, jigsaw, or circular saw... Go at a comfortable and even pace for you and keep a firm grip on the tool at all time. Patience especially applies to finish work! Take the time to patch and sand before you paint or else it'll show in the end result. Several light coats of finish are better than one heavy coat!