defender mame project

Took one of the first big financial leaps and ordered some parts from Happ Controls tonight. This includes the 40 push-buttons and the big red trackball. I’ll be ordering the rest of the controls from Ultimarc next month or so, (providing the economy holds out), and this does not include the tools and wood I’ll need to buy.

At 25 cents per old school game-play, I figure that I’ll have to play about 3,923 games on this machine once it’s complete to offset the cost of the parts.

Incognito and I dug up a couple of computers from the basement that I had originally saved from my neighbors trash several years ago. They look workable, one was a pentium 2, the other, a pentium 3. Plenty powerful enough to run some 30 year old games. 

This is close to final top panel design. This console is about two inches shorter than the ones found on real Defender machines to accommodate the large four player panels. It also includes two spinners and 4 start buttons where on the original panel there are only two. The graphics needed to be tweaked as a result—combining the original Defender console design with an aftermarket version I found on the web.

I’ve used Illustrator to map out the design and Strata Studio Pro for the renders. I’ll be posting all of the source files once I get the console built to ensure the measurements are lined up properly. As you can see in the wireframe mode, the reverse button slightly overlaps the joystick below the panel. I’ll have to see if this happens in real world, and if so, I may trim down the joystick meat a bit or end up sliding the reverse over and 1/8 of an inch. We’ll see.

After 8 years in the planning and completely missing the boat on being cool, I’ve finally begun the defender project. A mame concept based off of the original Defender arcade cabinet from the 80’s with a twist. A fold out control panel to accommodate up to 4 players. Biggest challenge, engineering how the fold out panel will actually fold out. Looks good in renders, but gearing has not yet been figured out.