Greetings

[Karmabass]

Hi all, I'm an Irishman living in London - I have been into retro gaming all my life, primarily through emulation which I discovered in the early 2000s. Spent lots of time on various retroarch setups and console homebrew stuff. More recently have become passionate about the hardware side of things and have been learning electronics soldering etc, modifying fight sticks, and making DIY machines. So far I've built a 12" mini bartop and a 32" virtual pinball. I live in an apartment so don't have the tools or space to do woodworking projects, so instead I've come to this forum in search of a Taito Vewlix, Namco Noir or Sega Naomi Universal cabinet that I can tinker with.
Karmabass2022-10-18 16:19:52

 

[Karmabass]

Here's a picture of my current project in case it's interesting to anyone who wants their control panels or fight sticks to have multi-system support. I found out that instead of paying over £80 for a rip-off Brooke UFB encoder, you can achieve the same functionality with a £5 Rasperry Pi Pico running custom joystick firmware. I'm waiting on the proper pins, dupont terminals and wiring loom for a clean install, but for now I just quickly soldered some homemade wires onto the pads to see if it works and so far it seems to be a winner.

The custom firmware is https://github.com/OpenStickFoundation/GP2040-CE

.

Karmabass2022-10-18 16:18:01

 

[big10p]

Welcome. Looks like you're a proper retro gamer. That's to say, you spend far more time fixing/making/tinkering than you do actually playing games.

 

[Karmabass]

@Big10p you've read me like a book mate I guess that must be a common archetype for members of the forum. I'm on my 8th or 9th project this year, and some of them I've only played on for less than an hour once they were configured to my liking.

I know emulation is a bit of a dirty word in the arcade collectors community, but at the beginning of summer I did a big project to set up a home NAS with Syncthing/FTP so that all my devices that run Retroarch (PC, Series X, Vita, Steam Deck, Retroid Pocket) have their save states synced to the cloud, so I can pick up where I left off on any system as well as pull ROM files from the server as needed. And I'm sure you can guess how many games I've used it for since then.

Karmabass2022-10-18 16:14:51

 

[big10p]

Yep, a pretty common archetype around here.

Sounds like you've done some cool projects. Emulation isn't a dirty word around here, to most. I've got a couple of cabs running groovyMAME, which is a very close next-best-thing to owning the original hardware, IMO.

 

[qjuk]

Welcome to the forum

I think emulation is an extremely important part of the scene. I also like seeing various homebrew projects too and the interesting things people come up with.

The thing I really love about this hobby is that you can make what you want. We have a diverse community here, people with a wide range of knowledge and expertise, I’m sure you’ll feel at home

 

[TheDaddy]

Welcomes !

Dave.

 

[Alpha1]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Mr20to5]

Welcome aboard. You seem to have a clear idea of what you want. Happy hunting.

 

[Flinnster]

Welcome - keep that soldering iron hot!

 

[Karmabass]

Hah, it was a piece of junk that somebody left in the lobby of my apartment building a few years ago. The tip is totally oxidised and it would take me several minutes just to solder a single pin. Finally caved and got a pinecil yesterday and soldered over 120 pins for my DIY pico pi encoder in about 30 minutes. Turns out that having temperature control on your iron is really important! D'oh.

Karmabass2022-10-25 15:27:08