DOS Gaming Cabinet Project

[in-effect]

Hi folks,

I grew up on DOS gaming - think Grand Prix Circuit, Apogee shareware games, Pinball Fantasies and the like - and still have a couple of AT 486 / Pentium mobos / expansion cards that I've kept. Ever since I saw the MAME coffee tables I wanted to do something similar, as DOSBox isn't quite the same. Seeing as the AT boards are so small, I thought it might be quite easy to make an all-in-one unit for some genuine oldskool gaming.

I'm an experienced engineer, but aside from secondary-school CDT skills, I don't currently have the ability to make my own case. So I guess I'm either looking for an existing case MOD someone else has made that I can buy, or spend time learning how to do it myself.

The system would be based around an ASUS Socket 7 mobo with Pentium MMX 233 CPU (which actually can take an AT or ATX PSU connection) with USB & Serial headers and PS2 keyboard socket. I have various expansion cards (I'm guessing I could have 2 sound cards to accommodate 2 joysticks / gamepads), Voodoo graphics, and a 15" TFT.

What I need advice on is PSU options (are there any good external solutions or DC-powered internal adaptors?) and if any cases exist that might be appropriate.

Cheers.

[in-effect]

Okay, in answer to one of my own questions, just found the PICO-PSU which looks adorable:

Couple more questions:

1. I'm guessing either a laptop drive or compactflash would be the best storage solution considering things like power consumption, heat and dimensions?
2. I have a couple of Apple-manufactured slot-loading optical drives from old iBooks - if they're standard ATA I could potentially get an adaptor for their proprietary interface. Don't know if the standard DOS cd drivers would work with it though. Otherwise it's a 5.25" unit.

[billygoat333]

you could also look into the ipod-sized hdds as well, but depending on what you were looking for (storage size, etc) compact flash would be the way I would go.

[Luke122]

Compact flash suffers from limited re-writes, so you would need to disable caching or the card may only last a few minutes.

The ipod drives (1.8") are available in decent capacties, but for the price, I'd stick with 2.5" hard drives. SSD's are also an option.. though pricey.

IIRC, the apple slot load drives will work with an adaptor. Can't recall who, but someone here used one in a build just recently.

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

um how about motherboard support? this thing is dino... relic like even.. it might not like such new tech (not rly that new.. but compared to it?)
keep it simple... the technology was simple then lol
dos gaming? r u goin to actually just use dos or windows aswell?
if windows i say grab a PCI videocard... get a lil more umph outa it..
i love the idea... <3 police quest