Walk Through Video 11/21/2010

Got a new Canon Power Shot S95 so here is a mandatory walk through with all the games turned on. Enjoy.

Video

Arturo's Arcade Lab - Home of SPACE PARANOIDS

We finally have a working prototype.



The trigger fires, and either top button centers the tank. 2-1/4" trackball on the left works like a mouse, I will probably reverse the Y-axis, which I think is more intuitive for aiming. Player 1 and 2 buttons, plus Continue and New Game buttons on the right.



Old Defender cabinet was a Mortal Kombat conversion when I got it. I will try a few other cabinets styles in the future. This one will be running at my TRON after-party in December.

UPDATE:

I was able to get the Space Paranoids game to reside on the hard drive so this machine no longer needs internet access to be playable.

Bubble Bobble in a Williams cabinet

I extracted this non-working Bubble Bobble from a daycare facility as part of a trade for a working game. Upon closer inspection, the cabinet seems to be an alternate style Robotron. I can see the outline of the Robotron sideart under the black latex paint.



It's been a while since this poor sod has been cleaned and vacuumed.



NASTY!!!



Monitor still works, and is in very decent shape. I cleaned the dirt off the screen and the image is clear and bright, very moderate burn-in.



Well I measured the voltages, and strangely, it measures +12Vdc where the supply is labeled +5Vdc. And I measured +5Vdc where it says +12Vdc. I get nothing on -5Vdc.

I swap out the power supply with a good one, connect the rails, and the thing comes to life. Board is good, monitor is good, working game!!!

So what now??? Well, I am planning to do a Robotron, or MultiWilliams out of the cabinet. It is rare to find an alternate Robotron cabinet, so this thing will not stay a Bubble Bobble for very long. The BB guts will go on Ebay or in a generic cabinet.

Ten - Hut!!!

I picked up this working Bally Midway Sarge less than 2 miles from my house. Don't think I ever played it in the arcade, but I do have a faint memory of the on-screen action. Takes a couple of games to get used to controlling the tank but once you do it is a blast to play.

The CP is pretty clean, and one side is mostly intact, the other side is torn up. Anyway, for the price, it was nice to get a rare game so close by.

Discs of Tron Environmental (Chopped)

The DOT E (Chopped) cleans up nicely with new baby blue T-molding.

The old T-molding was brittle and cracking. The machine had nicotine residue all over. I cleaned that up with some LA's Totally Awesome.

Nintendo PimpChoice10

I was able to get my pimp-hands on a ghetto-licious Playchoice 10 cabinet. It was empty, dirty, and had mo holes in the control panel than a $5 ho at a crackheads convention.

So I decided to pimp-MAME this muther out!!!



Yo, it gots chrome T-molding, and a 3" Trackball!!! It gots 2 joysticks and 6 buttons each fo puttin' da pimp-slap on all my Mortal Kombat bitchez...

Computer Monitor to Arcade Monitor Frame Transplant

Check it out. I took a Dell M992 computer monitor and transplanted it to a standard arcade monitor frame from an Electrohome GO7-CBO.



We start by decasing the Dell M992 computer monitor.



Once the yoke, wires, and chassis are exposed, it's a good idea to disconnect the grounds, degauss coil, V and H, and the remote PCB.

I went ahead and bolted the top tube ears. This will hold the monitor at the proper level for the next step, which is bolting the bottom ears using an adapter.



I found a flat piece of metal with holes the right distance apart.



Since the 19" computer monitor tube is a little smaller than the arcade monitor tube, we have to make adapters to mount the monitor "ears" onto the Electrohome GO7-CBO frame. I used a flat metal bracket with the holes about 3/4" apart for the bottom ears. For the top ears I used left-over coin door latches with holes drilled in them.



I had to push the chassis forward as far as I could, then zip tie it in place using convenient holes and tabs.

Here I am testing it to make sure all that handling did not damage the monitor.

Here it is mounted inside a Tempest mini.