Looking for advice on SNK Bartop conversion

[shadablade]

Greets all, New to the forum, and looking for a bit of advice.

Earlier in the week I came across an old SNK / Playmore gameroom classics bartop by PVG tech for sale. It was in mostly good condition on initial inspection and everything fired up and worked, so I picked it up.

Getting it home it was obvious it was in need of a lil bit of TLC, as several of the micro switches were about shot, evidence of something had been spilled into the player 1 controller, and now sadly just today in mid game of Metal Slug, the monitor went out ( appears the vertical "board" went out in it)

So as now not to condemn to whole thing to a total loss, I'd like to convert it to a mini mame cab, I already have a spare micro-atx system that I can use in it for the mame core, but I'm looking for some advice on where to start for

Upgrading to better joysticks / buttons as well as possibly making a new control top to go from the SNK 4 button to the 6 button approach.

Since all the original stuff was prewired into its custom Jamma harness, what do I need to look into for wireing button control into a pc? I recall back in the past when I had thought about a mame cab, that ipac's were used, this still the case?

In short, I'm fringe to see what I can do w/o having to tear the cabinet up at least...I'd hate the whole thing be for naught  

Thanks.

[crtrrss]

you would need a j-pac to wire it to a pc.

[Unstupid]

Personally I'd find an MV1C on eBay and get a 161-in-1 cart.  Keep it real for the most part!  But that's just what I'd do!  Nice find by the way!

[shadablade]

I spoke to a friend of mine last evening who also mentioned the thought of trying to convert it to a slot 1.  Is there much info out there on doing that? I'm sure there has to be a bit more than pulling one out and putting the other in. Also, with the monitor dead, what about outputting to LCD?  Sorry for all the questions, its kind of fresh ground to actually be mucking with instead of just looking at :p

[BobA]

Here is a link to a PVG conversion using an Xbox.  It is about the same as using a mini itx except the ITX is easier as the xbox to jamma converter is not required or keeping the original PS.  Not sure what monitor came in the PVG (was it a TV?) but if it is gone an LCD in 4:3 format would be a good cheap choice.

Link to PVG conversion

[shadablade]

Thanks for the link there BobA! Yes the original monitor was a tube type and it went dead so it has been taken out. Right now its an internal debate between installing an itx mame system into the cab as I have pretty much every thing I need for the system part already, or try to source out a slot 1 (which seems hard enough to find now as is) and deal with its own inherent issues... Ahh decisions