i decided to start a small log of how i am going to turn my NEO GEO X docking station into a perfect way to house my Pi and make better use of the docking station than the actual NEO GEO X did. if you have a NEO GEO X then you might have noticed the same draw backs the rest of us have... lack of v sync, so so video signal output, and one of my favorites; a battery that completely drains when not used for a while. what this means is; when i wanna play me some NGX i gotta leave that puppy on for about 20 min just to get a minimum charge to even turn on, by that time im usually "turned off". i have been looking for a way to get the most out of the system and even made a sd card hack dongle thing and was able to have the whole NEO GEO library on like 3 micro sd cards, but if i can't play when i want that is all useless.
what i have done to work around this is i have made my Pi boot directly into FBA and modded the menu graphics in Photoshop to suit my project. now, with every NG game at my fingertips as well as some choice CPS 1&2 games i am going to modify the NGX base station to accommodate my Pi and utilize the power switch and usb ports on the front and finally tap the composite A/V jack on the back. once done, all i have to do is flip the power switch on the front and grab the NGX control stick and go to town!
i will take many photos as i make my modifications and post them up here in case anyone is interested in possibly doing this too, but for now, here are some photos of what is inside the base station:
ITS ALIVE! It was a complete success! i was able to splice and dice the NEO GEO X base station to do my bidding! i will post some photos and a video of it in action this weekend. for now, here is the intro it will be using to replace the pimame intro:
awsome! i'm just waiting for my neogeo pad from playasia to arrive then i can commence something similar. great job. Also can you use neogeo roms with pifba or is it a certain mame set? any help appreciated.
Okay! i got everything up and running! it was actually easier than i thought it would be. i came home from work the other night and had this done in about an hour and a half. i could have had it done faster if i didn't waste time looking for my nice looking cables to use. i will probably go back and tidy things up later. but, as promised, a video! i skim over the details of the project and give a short demo. this has been a fun project. to think, i went from getting my Pi in the mail about 3 weeks ago, to now having it customized to my tastes is a testament to the work that's being done here. i couldn't have done this without Pimame and all the information here. thanks everyone.