Proper Frank Spencer moment.
Many, many moons ago, I was addicted to Williams Defender. I could go in the arcade of my mis-spent youth and play for hours and hours on just one 10p.

Fast forward a couple of years and one morning I went into the arcade (was waiting outside for them to open to be honest, I really was *that* sad), put 10p in the slot and was happily playing for all of about 30 seconds when smoke started pouring out of the front of the screen and then all of a sudden caught fire.

The 10p had fallen straight through, thanks to the numpty that 'looked after' the machines not putting the coin tray back in place, and landed on the transformer shorting the whole thing out.

So, bang goes any more Defender playing for me - these things are as rare as rocking horse shite and even more expensive to buy.

Quite a few years later, and I still have the Defender madness.

Unbenknown to me at the time, there is a huge number of people rebuilding these types of machines and putting old PC's in them and running MAME.

I had the idea of making a MAME PC before I knew about this 'community' and was more-or-less designing this thing in my head when one Saturday I woke up quite early and thought, "fuck it, today I am actually going to get off my sorry arse and build this fucker", so went off to the local wood merchants, got a load of MDF, 2x2 and chipboard and set about making the box to the exact dimentions of an old Williams Defender (as that would be the primary game to be played on the box).

A few hours later (after sweating perfusly just sawing a bit of 2x2 in half and realising that there was a bloke hot-tarring the roof at the same time), I had the basics of a Defender lookalike.

Of course, to start with I was counter-sinking the screws carefully, laying the perspex into little cut grooves and generally taking a lot of care with the woodwork side of things.

Five minutes in, I was just wacking nails and screws into it just to make it good enough to hold it's own weight.

Anyway, once it was upright I soldered lots of wires into the back of an old keyboard and touching the wires together obviously showed on the screen which key they were wired to, so then soldered all the buttons etc...

Fast forward a few days and, viola! the machine is finished - well, it actually never got completely finished as once it started playing games, I would pop out to the garage to add the finishing touches and have 'just a quick game' which always meant playing 'till well past midnight.

Anyway, fast forward about 8 years and due to my ex misses buggering off and leaving me to pay her multitude of debts I had to sell the house (familiar story I'm sure).

Loads of crap got thrown away, a lot by my current girlfriend who, quite honestly was ruthless (bear in mind, I had a draw full of broken guitar strings that I just couldn't bring myself to throw away, so my idea of ruthless probably isn't the same as many peoples).

Finally, it came to clearing the garage out - I say 'garage', but over the years I built a bar in there with pumps, put fake olde worlde wooden beams in, a payhone, a fruit machine and more-or-less turned the place into a proper pub.

Well, the time came to move the MAME machine.

It was then that I realised that I had made an error in the magnitude of Frank Spencer realms.

Yep, it was far too wide for the door and far too tall to get out the other end of the garage.

No problem, thinks I. I'll just dissasemble it and reassemble it at the other end.

Of course, this would have been fine had I continued making the thing with the care and thought that I first put into it. Which I didn't.

Screws were welted through the wood and were not coming out without a fight.

Didn't happen. Slowly but surely it was dawning on my what had to happen.

I just couldn't do it. It was my friend of many years.

The last thing I heard was the cackling laughter of my girlfriend and my 'best mate' smashing the thing up to get it out the door and burning it in the garden.

I was, and for the most part still am, truly gutted.

Sorry for length and boredom rating, but I thought I'd post something a bit different to 'my virginity was taken', 'my porn stash was nicked' or 'my drugs went missing'.
(dchurch bah, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:32, 9 replies)

cant you build a new one?
*click* for good yarn plus for having actual skills.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:35, closed)

Thanks....
I'm thinking of making a 'fold-out' model - I did think about the old cocktail cabinet models but to be honest, I prefer to stand up and play.

I just have to find a way to make it 'wife friendly'.

I managed to keep all the buttons, joysticks and coin tray mechanism before it was beaten to death, so I think a new model is on the cards!!
(dchurch bah, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:37, closed)

No apologies needed
A good story for a pretty lame QOTW. You get a click!
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:41, closed)

Gutting!
Oh man, I bet that bespoke games machine was awesome.

Any pics of it?

I hope that you make an even cooler one mate. It must have been soul destroying to dismantle it.
(Panteneman Isn't entirely sure why he bothered on, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:49, closed)

I can sympathise with your woodworking efforts
Many's the time I've started a job off behaving like that bloke from the New Yankee Workshop, and within ten minutes have lost patience with that approach and resorted to nails and cable ties. So it's worth a click for solidarity alone!
(richardm, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:50, closed)

I
I couldn't bring myself to do it - that's why my GF and my mate did it for me.....errr. thanks to them I suppose?!

I have got some pics somewhere, I'll try to dig them out and post them up.
(dchurch bah, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:51, closed)

Excellent clickage
I tried to make something similar a few years ago...

Fancy raising the stakes next time and building your own Outrun cabinet?
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 15 Aug 2008, 9:53, closed)

Outrun?
...now you're talking!

I did try to make it all things to all men by having a vast array of buttons and joysticks to try to suit all games.

I had the idea of having the steering wheel on a hinged bracket that slid up and back so it would sit on top of the machine until you needed to play a driving game, then you could just slide it out and down and it would be in the perfect place.

Again, every time I went to the garage to start work on it, I would just have 'one quick game' usually with a beer or six with a friend and that part of it never got made sadly.

Still, there's always the next one.

PS. I still have 2 guns left from a 'Lethal Enforcer' that I picked up at auction for 14 quid! The screen has since gone, but tha cabinet and the electrics are still ok (well, at least I think they are, it's been sitting in my dad's back garden for the last six months covered in polythene!).
(dchurch bah, Fri 15 Aug 2008, 10:01, closed)

Be careful
with that MDF. That shit is not good if you breathe the dust.
Handy Andy is now a drooling spakker because of MDF.*





*May not be true but should be.
(Prof. Moriarty put his foot in it on, Sun 17 Aug 2008, 1:00, closed)