Making a Game Console Part 2 - Parts and Installation

Every computer needs parts. For this one, I'm sourcing my parts from the Sony PCV-RX550 I found in the garbage at my apartment over the summer (and the DVD drive from the other computer because it looks better than the other ones). This was to be computer that ran the game console. Fitting it to the case that I desperately didn't want to cut or damage because it's pretty was very hard, and I had to make some serious concessions. Let's get started, shall we?
The first thing we have to do is get one thing out of the way right now: I have to put the CD-Drive and Floppy Drive on the back of the machine. I know, I know, it's very impractical... but I really really don't want to cut the case.

Let's look at the parts we're using here:

First, we have 768MB of SDRAM that came with the computer. This will be more than enough to run Windows 98, Windows XP, and an older version of Ubuntu (probably 10.04). I want to run some recent programs too, so we're tripple booting the system. Wish me luck.

Next, we have a telephony card. This is totally extra; I just have one and it'll fit in the motherboard and I'm never going to use it anywhere else so why not?

Next, we have a CT4780 Sound Blaster sound card. This has a game port on the back of it, and that's super important. It also offloads the sound responsibility from the processor and gives better options as to how to get audio out.

For graphics, we have an ASUS NVIDIA 32MB AGP graphics card. Nothing special about this, but it'll get the job done and then some.

Next, we have the motherboard. It's a standard motherboard. But what's important is the I/O connectors and the USB connector. We need to look at the pinout of the I/O connector which is conveniently labeled as followed;

We'll work with the power button, the power LED, and the Hard Drive LED. Those will be attached to the front of the board. The USB header is for connecting an Arduino to the board without wasting a USB connector, as there are only two on the back of the motherboard. The pinout is evident from the cord that came with it.

We also have a Hard Drive, a Floppy Drive, and a CD Drive. The drive is 82GBs.

Finally, we have the power supply that came with the computer.

Now we can start to lay it out. I really want to make everything as compact as possible. I did it in two steps.

I put the hard drive and the power supply in. I'm not sure how to route the power cable yet, but I'll figure it out at some point, probably by moving the plug.

Next, the motherboard and cords go in. Of course, we're missing the cards and the drives because there's no good way to attach them yet. I think we need a simple way to hold this stuff together (with the exception of the motherboard, that's getting screwed down. I'm thinking Velcro.

The motherboard adapter is a little different. We're removing some of the tracks on the bottom and screwing a very thin, small piece of wood to it. We're then using nuts and screws to attach it and to raise it off of the bottom. Time to go to the hardware store!

I picked up a piece of wood, some 6-32 screws and nuts, and some Velcro. After some cutting and some drilling, I was able to get the wood down and fastened into the case.

The motherboard fit on perfectly. Next, I worked on the front panel. I took the front panel and added wires to the buttons and LEDs. I also took a light from a scanner so I could get some neat effects on the front. Soldering those wires so that they were flat was not fun. At all.

Then I started putting things in the box. I attached the hard drive with Velcro so it wouldn't move around. The power supply isn't tied down yet. I'm waiting to have everything else in place.

The next step is to get the LED bar to work with an Arduino. The Arduino will be wired right to the motherboard via the USB header. I then blew the red component of this one and had to salvage another one. It works just as well. I attached it to an Arduino with some resistors and hot glued it all into the case.

I wrote some code for it, and it worked!

It's strange how you can only see blue but all of the colors are there I promise.

So now what? Next we need to determine the pinout of the original case power button/light board so we can use the original cable that fits very well into the motherboard. First, we figure out what pins the motherboard originally used by probing the connector and the board with charged wires. 2 volts is a safe bet here, as there are resistors for the LEDs on board. Be careful, there may be red LEDs.

The pinout is as follows on the board. This board is marked as SWX-66, REV 1.02, for future reference.

And this is the mapping of the pins from the board to the same connector:

So now we can try to turn the computer on by attaching the power button to the cable,and the cable to the motherboard. And, wouldn't you know it, it worked! I then checked to make sure the voltage on the hard drive and power pins were appropriate for the LEDs on the main board and, against all odds, they worked perfectly together.

So now the I/O connector is squared away, let's deal with the main power of the computer. The way I have the power supply oriented, I can't plug a standard AWG plug into it. So what I decided to do is to take the power cable from the original stereo (after using a dremel tool to remove it from the back panel) and attach it to the PSU. What I did next I do not advise. I can only assume it's bad practice, but there was nobody around to stop me. I soldered the appropriate wires from the original power cord straight to the AWG socket on the PSU. Once I verified it worked, I filled the socket with hot glue. Now we have a less bulky way to power the computer.

Don't try this at home kids. This is probably a bad idea.

Once the hot glue cooled down, I velcroed the PSU into the frame and attached everything I had in there to it and tried to turn it on one more time. Boy was I relieved when it turned on and didn't catch on fire.

Next thing to do is to make the lights on the front do something when the computer is turned on. The Arduino still has the color cycle program installed on it, so we just need to cut apart a mini USB cable and feed it into the USB header on the motherboard and it should be able to talk to it over "serial."

Except we don't really have to cut a cord apart. I have a small little PCB that has a female USB and two 3.5mm audio jacks that came from a broken laptop. I could solder wires onto the board and then put those wires into the connector for the motherboard

Once the front light turned on, I folded up the cord and closed up the case. The cord was really really long and prevented the case from closing correctly (I had to force it), so I got a much better cable from Amazon which should be here before the next step in the construction (it's shorter and has a right angle connector). The next step was to plug in and velcro all of the drives to the back of the case. It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would, but I do wish I had a better place for them.

Then I brought it back to my place to plug it into a TV to see if it would post (it beeped but that doesn't really mean anything). This was the moment of truth!

The computer posted! I had a good feeling that it would work, but I was afraid I had shorted something while building it. I'm glad to see that it can at least run.

The next step is to replace the wire connecting the scanner light when it comes from Amazon (I chose no-rush shipping). And then we begin the software install. I've gotten ahead of myself and started the Windows 98 install because I have the disk on hand. Hopefully it all works correctly!

Episode 3 will be all about the operating systems and software. Stay tuned!