Getting the computer working

The computer will be the basis of the MAME cabinet - running and storing the games as well as outputting the sounds/music and linking up the joysticks, buttons and trackerball. Therefore unless I could get my old computer working the project would be halted before it ever really got going.

On opening up the computer case some memories came back to me - when the power supply blew in our main computer I borrowed the PSU out of this old one while waiting for a new unit to be delivered. I had put the borrowed PSU back into the case once finished with, but hadn't bothered plugging it all back in.

After a bit of a faff (which included me forgetting to power the motherboard and wondering why it still wouldn't turn on) it came to life.

Windows 2000 booted up (that is how old this system is) so I had a bit of a look round. This system started out as our everyday PC, but then got turned into a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) so we could replace our old VHS recorder (this was before DVD recorders really got going). In converting it to a PVR I had upgraded the RAM to 1gb and added a new HDD (bringing total storage to 70gb). These upgrades would help it to run MAME, but the rest of the system was pretty out of date - an AMD athlon 1800+ CPU and Nvidea 5200 graphics card.

Windows 2000 was also totally out of date, but rather than upgrade to XP, or even Seven, I decided to go a different route.