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Since starting the Gigantor Project I destroyed 2 of my 2 Hantarex Arcade monitors
I was searching on ebay and other platforms, but didn’t find any Arcade monitors for sale, so I decided to add a SCART output to my Gigantor wiring to use an old and cheap TV as monitor.
Today I finished all the wiring for the Gigantor, I want to be able to use JAMMA and other PCBs so I decided to go with the Austrian “Novomatic” 50pin D-SUB as my main connector. I believe this should be the most durable type.
The finished wiring consists of one primary female 50pin D-SUB which can be connected to different PCBs via (still to do) converters. From this there are 4 main connecions:

1. Video: 15pin male D-SUB connector wired according to the VGA standard
2. Audio: Stereo female TRS connector
3. Controlers: 38pin female Centronics connector with own pin assignment
4. Mains: 9pin Connector to Hantarex US200

On the Video part follows a SCART connector which also needs +5V for switching the TV to RGB mode which is routed via Chinch connectors.

Today was the first test and YEAHHH … everything works perfectly … playing Arcade games on a 42″ Full HD rulez

Everything is wired in a way to replace any part at any time, for example it’s no problem to replace the SCART connector with an Arcade monitor connector, or completely replace the PCBs with a MAME computer.

At the moment I have no camera, but I will post some pictures at a later time.

Yeah, I know I seem to be unable to finish one project before starting the next one
Nevertheless I did it again. Since I bought together with a friend about 40 original arcade PCBs, I thought I’d need something to put them inside.
First I wanted to use one of my existing cabinets for this, but soon I realized I’d need something special because of 4 different connection systems (5 if you also count the MAME PC), portrait and landscape monitor setting and different controls layout and other ideas.
So I was surfing the interwebs to get ideas for a cabinet design and I stumbled over the austrian “Gigant” System.
I really liked the “monumental” design of this case, but I was missing some of the more traditional elements, so I fired up my trusty ARCHline and modelled my own case.
It’s fairly big so a midsized monitor can be turned from portrait to landscape inside the case (I plan to make it motorized )
Contrary to the rendering I’ve changed the color scheme. While blue is my favorite color I decided to go with some kind of purple for the base and a nice grey for the top.
Some first work is already done on the case:

The last days I was working a lot to convert the Operation Bear into a general MAME cabinet.

As always I had more or less no plan what I was doing and just learned by doing.

First I destroyed an old PS/2 keyboard and soldered the arcade controllers to the keyboard controller. The Caps/Num/Scroll Lock LEDs are used as CPU Load indicator (25%/50%/75%).

Then I checked how to connect the Arcade Monitor (Hantarex MTC9000) to the computer and decided to solder a VGA connector directly to the Monitor Input. In this way I can hook up the computer with a standard VGA cable and simply switch to the original Operation Bear by plugging out the PC and plugging in the original ROM.

All the computerparts are mounted on a piece of wood which perfectly fits into the cabinet. I also bought some new low cost speakers, dismantled them and mounted them into the original places.

The next step was to mount the controller assembly into the cabinet without destroying it. Everything should be completely removable so the original lightgun can be mounted again.

The last missing step is to put some nice finishing over all my naked wood parts, but this is again something I have to learn

More images:

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And again a new family member

Operation Bear is a shooting game from 1987 equipped with a lightgun with “force feedback”. The game is a bootleg of the Taito Operation Wolf.

The case is in fairly good shape and electrically everything (except the sound ) is working.

All pictures: