Inspired by PDF's Gameroom thread in OT, I decided I'm going to do a Supergun construction journal. This will be a way to track my progress for me and might be a help to anyone looking to build one of these suckers for them selves.
I've been debating on this for a long time and considering 99% of the games I play were arcade JAMMA board to begin with, it just makes sence to finally start collecting them. Plus I've always wanted a Neo Geo and getting into the home cart scene requires a lot of money. Yeah, you can get the convertor cart to play MVS, but for that cost I figured I could get a MVS board and make a supergun.
Specifically, I want a Supergun to play shmups and Neo Geo on. So many shmups never made it home and MAME just isn't cutting it for me anymore. Neo Geo MVS carts are the only way I'm going to be able to afford getting into the Neo. I'd like to be able to expand to Street Fighter type fighting games someday (assuming I can get over my fear of the CPSII's suicide battery )
First of all, I considered going with a pre-made 'gun. Seems like the going rate is $300 and I've heard mixed things about them. The big problem I've heard, other than being stuck with conposite video outs, was that you'd still have to change stuff around to use some JAMMA boards (Neo-Geo, for one.)
Then I considered finding someone else to make it for me. But the more I looked into what a supergun is, the more it seemed like I could do this myself. Plus, if something goes wrong or I want to change something, I'll know what was done in the first place.
I also want to make this as modular as possible. I want to be able to use RGB output or NTSC composite/S-Video without having to rewire a bunch of stuff. I want to be able to use as many different board as possible. And I want the controllers to be detachable.
So, information gathering is completed. I got the bulk of my info from:
http://www.gamesx.com (great general game tech site)
http://www.hardmvs.com (MVS specific site)
http://web.njit.edu/~jal0737/ (poster at Neo-Geo.com. lots of great info)
http://www.chads.arcade.btinternet.c...ergunIndex.htm
http://dasfool.aroo.tv/ (The Idiot's Guide to the Gupergun, nice, eh?)
On to parts: