The main concept was to keep the original 80's flair and feeling, but to have thousands of games instead of only one. So the use of DOS (or better...the NON-USE of Windows) was essential for me, you can now switch this machine OFF by simply pulling out the power cord.
The tube has been rotated 90 degrees to fit best for NEOGEO games, so the old bezel had to go for a new one. You can download the new one here. The new PCB is an ABIT Slot1 P3 Board with a PIII 850, ATi RAGE Pro, isa SB-16 and 256 MB SDRAM (CL2). The GFX card was directly connected to the tube first (picture was almost too good), but most vertical games were very small and interlaced, so a scanconverter has been added and now resolutions are no thing to worry about any more, because it converts any resolution from VGA to real NTSC RGB. Make sure the scanconverter you want to use has an RGB out !
When you open the metal front flap with the key, a keyboard appears in front of you. The action-buttons and the joystick of the arcade machine are directly soldered to some keys, you will find more details on that on the wiring page. It is very important that you find an old keyboard with real solder points for attaching the wires coming from the action buttons (check fleemarket, cellar, friends). Modern keyboards cannot be used since they dont have real circuit cards any more. The thick grey cable comes out of the keyboard and spreads up to the six buttons in the front and to the microswitches of the joystick. The old keyboard is connected to the PS/2 port via adaptor (around 1$), this port also supplies the power for the scanconverter.
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