Pre-Build Arcade Machine Discussion

[LedFinZep]

It is both amazing and kind of sad to see companies coming into this hobby and starting to sell complete systems. While the price tag may be high (Hanaho = $4000 plus shipping and Sharper Image = $3000), it won't be long before having a MAME machine in your home isn't as unheard of as it is today. Part of the appeal/cool factor of building my own machine was that I knew that very few people in the world had such a device. With companies coming into the hobby, owning a arcade machine will no longer be about learning how to build one and enjoying the process; but about having enough money. Oh well, I guess that is the way of the world.

Comments??

LedFinZep

[tubuku01]

I agree wholeheartedly.  before i started on my cabinet, i thought about just saving and buying one preassembled, but i wanted one with MY options in mind.  in the long run, i built my own (almost there), and the rewards were TREMENDOUS!! I didn't know that i was capable of woodwork of any kind.  one rotary saw, one jigsaw, a drill, and a lot of blood and sweat later, there it was(almost) built all by my self.

now that the project is 80 percent done, the wifey saw my small talent in researching, planning and building potential, and is suggestingly asking for a big shelf to build for the stuff in the garage. ("but sweetheart, these things take research, and time" i say "IF YOU CAN BUILD THAT DAMN THING, THEN A SHELF SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM FOR YOU!" says she) funny, how before the arcade project, she wouldn't trust me to even check the oil in the car. :-/

well, sorry to rant but to get to the point: if you build your own, then not only will you have  created much greater confidence in your abilities to actually plan, research, and build a seemingly impossible project(to people that know nothing of emulators, etc), but you'll have the pride, and satisfaction of looking at people's faces when you tell them, that you didn't buy it, but built it from scratch.
well, thanx for reading.

[Howard_Casto]

Don't worry about it guys.... it's quite obvious who the real arcade freaks and the stupid lamers are.  Lamers are guys who either buy a pre-built cab or a used cab and stick premade controls in them.  Not only do they take this shortcut but they do absolutely nothing to their cabs/controls, (custom paint job, or restoration of the original artwork) often making them look tacky as they aren't supposed to go together.  And to pour salt on the wounds they put up a site about how they "built it theirselves" by going all the way to the phone, buying the dang things and maybe tightening two screws together.

There are guys who buy a stock sports car and then there are the guys who get and old junker, tweak out the engine, give it a custom paint-job and make a true work of art.  

Don't worry, a real arcade fan is not impressed by a pre-made p.o.s.

Fight the power!!

[jammadave]

hmmm, well, in my situation i could have certainly done the woodwork if i had the room and the tools, which i do not, but i cannot, repeat cannot, do the whole soldering-wires-to-leads-and-such thing, i seriously would burn my damn house down.

that said, my emu-driven star wars/esb machine was built by my tech and fellow collector and sold to me, and the MAME i'm getting in the next month or so is being built by a DIYer like you guys and not a company, so where do I fall in the gamer vs lamer category?  (heh, once i get them i have the task of setting up the software how i want it and such, and on the new one i'll be getting art together for its sides and such, but that's about it.)

just curious as there seems to be a definite divide...

cheers
dave

[jammadave]

MAN, i said "and such" too many times there.  probably sounded like an imbecile.  doh.

cheers
dave

[Malenko]

not exactly  on topic but I hacked some sidewinders for my first panel and the solder joints kept breaking, so I gave up and got a hot rod... that makes me a lamer? if it makes you feel better I broke the hot rod, but then again Im sending it back for them to fix cause I dont wanna solder it =)

I do my own custom artwork, and Ive done other art work for other mamers (and if anyone wants something done, justdrop me a line llinrac at comcast dot net)

But Ive retro fitted 2 cabinets now, I got a slightly better cab for my mame and my MOM wants my old cab for her mame machine (dont get too giddy, shes a pac man nutcase)

Well anyways Ive said too much and typo-ed too much as well. I'll close withthis:  If you cant do something  and order it pre-done good for you, you get to play mame anyway =)

Thom

[CthulhuLuke]

How could I have turned down a perfectly good offer for a free cabinet large enough for a 4 player control panel, with an extra big marquee space, already installed late 80s styled speakers, and a working coin door!  There was no monitor, and I'm having to rebuild the control panel and built a special holder for the tv.  Ya know what, with all the laminate on the sides and the t-molding pre installed, along with the power supply that came with it, this thing in parts alone would have cost me a few hundred to build.  Why not save myself having to save up hellllza money and all that effort working to buy the parts to build my own cabinet, when I can get the frame and work that way.  LoL, nerds arguing about arcade machines, what an awesome thread I must say.  Anyways, just puttin in my $.02 on the matter.  
   -Cthulhu32
PS: I'm only 17 so it's pretty damn hard to build my own arcade machine BY MYSELF.  I've been having my dad help me along the way, on this and that, but I've done all the wiring so far, and a bit of the wood work.  The control panel is not finished, but it should be soon, and that thing will have a lot of effort put into it by my dad and I.

[hyiu]

on the other hand, I'm not sad seeing that companies now sell mame machine.  This means we actually have a large number of people out there that has a passion on these old arcade games !!

also, competition can drive price down, force companies to create new ideas, designs, convinent packages and maybe we can actually learn from them !!

truth is... not every gamers out there have the woodworking skill to build a nice mame machine as shown in Saint's example pages.... I am VERY impressed with a lot of them... also, a lot of time needs to be spend before this thing is done...

but if you're rich enough to dish out several thousand $$ and get 1 pre-made... why not ??

yes, you do get a lot of satisfaction by building it... but for those who likes to play those older arcade games and buy a pre-made cab, I don't see anything lame about it....

since I don't have several thousand $$ to spend, I'm planning to build one myself... although that will save me some $$, but I'm sure everyone knows... this project usually runs over-time, over-budget, over-work....  

[RandyT]

"Fight the Power" ?!?!?

C'mon, this is a little absurd.  Just because someone doesn't possess the skills or time to do this the way somone else "thinks" it should be done, doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to participate in the hobby.

I can't count the number of times I have heard "don't hack a keyboard/joystick/mouse, just buy X from vendor Y".  Just *where* would you like to draw  the line?

My cab is an old Defender that was rotting away in my basement (don't worry, it was gutted long before I got ahold of it).  It used to house my Amiga, long before Mame was a twinkle in it's father's eye.  I could have built one from scratch that was identical to it in every way, but there is some nostalgic value in having a cabinet that was actually used by a few thousand people in a real arcade.  This, however, only increases it's value to some.  To others, it's just someone elses used junk.

My control panel is comprised of a keyboard hack, mouse spinner hack, and gamepad hack.  I spent WEEKS printing control panel and marquee overlays (36" inkets rule ), hacking keyboard matrices, gutting a TV set,  hacking the mouse and gamepad, wiring the controls, configuring the computer,.... you get the idea.

Now, would I wish this type of project on someone without a clue?  Not in a million years.  There are so many skills needed to build one of these things, that very few people can be a master of them all.  

This doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to play.

And while *you* might get some satisfaction out of the fact that you "did it all yourself", quite frankly, I have only been impressed by a few of these projects.  Of course, impressing me isn't important, but if you are going to put your project on "display" in your living room, a certain level of quality might not be a bad idea.

Sorry if I got off on a rant here, but I'd be willing to bet that that few of the folks frequenting this site have the skills to write their own emulation software, but that doesn't keep them from using MAME.  Are we to become such elitists that we believe because others don't possess *our* skills, they should not be able to enjoy the things we have?  I would hope not.

RandyT

[ophtho]

I am one of the prebuilt cab people who frequents this site.  As I have said before in other threads, I was able to buy a fully working refurbished generic Japanese sit down JAMMA cabinet with 29" monitor, controls with 6 buttons each, working coin door, etc all for $300.

Looking at the sometimes thousands of $$$ that others spent on building the whole thing by themselves I just don't have that kind of money.  I certainly admire the lengths to which people go to customize the own cabs and the hundreds of hours put into their final machine. They should be rightly proud of their work.

I unfortunately work 80 hours a week as a resident, enjoy playing these older games that I grew up with in what little free time I have left, and so the choice was clear.

Even with buying the prebuilt cab I spent a good 40 hours choosing components (video cards, scan converters, JPAC etc) getting everything hooked up right, mounting a trackball and spinner, constructing a second panel for my Dreamcast, replacing molex connectors, cleaning the dirtridden cab, mounting speakers, rewiring part of the JAMMA harness, and then replacing the monitor when I accidentily blew it out.

I'm not going to post a cabinet page and all as I don't think what I did justifies one. However, I don't think I qualify as a lamer and unworthy of MAME for what I did.

[JustMichael]

Whether you built your cab or bought it,  you joined this great hobby and that is what really counts.  Of course everyone else thinks we are nuts until they play the old arcade games on the cab...

[Zipper]

There are many aspects to the hobby - woodworking is just one of them. It's not my cup of tea, so i got a second hand cab.

This hobby for me is the electronic / computer side of things. I took a lot of time getting my electronic multi-coin/credit mech working. Something that not many other members do - they would consider no coin door, or a 1 coin = 1 credit solution to be sufficient.

I don't say that those people are lazy and not pure arcade control members! People take this hobby off on tangents - there isn't 1 set way to do anything.

Absolutely JM!
People love playing on the cabinet. That's the whole reason behind the hobby in the first place. How you get to the end result is not important. Neither is the fact that there are lots of others enjoying pre-fab cabinets.

[Zipper]

Not to mention the fact that I probably spent as long cleaning and fixing up the cab as it would take to build one from scratch!  

[Justin Waugh]

I think it's very arrogant, elitist and rude to call people who buy pre-built cabs "lamers".  Not everyone has the time or knowledge to do it themselves.  Why didn't you build your own house?  Or buy a kit car and build that yourself instead of buying it from a dealer?

There are lots of people who think having a MAME machine is a cool idea, and just want to buy a fully working one to enjoy it.  They may not get the same enjoyment as you do from building it themselves.

Instead of calling those people lamers, we should invite them to learn more about it.  Don't forget that some people may have never known you could easily do it yourself.  They may have just seen an ad for the pre-built and bought it.

Justin

[LedFinZep]

Wow its great to hear all the comments on this topic. I just wanted to clarify, when I said "pre-built arcade machine" I meant a fully working mame machine that was purchased through a company like Hanaho. What I wasn't refering too was people who converted an old arcade machine into a MAME machine. I, myself, decided to go this "converted" route and it is very difficult indeed. I think the most important thing to remember (and someone mentioned this before) is that the whole point of building an arcade machine is to relive your youth. So I guess whether buying, building, or converting the important thing is the outcome... fun. Thanks for listening and a special thanks goes out to everyone on the board for their generous help.

- LedFinZep
I'll have a website of my project up soon.

[Dire Radiant]

Well, I've been lurking around the forums for a couple of months now but I just had to register for this one...

Aren't we missing the point a little? I thought the intention wasn't to see who had the most developed woodworking muscles, who was a crack antique restorer or indeed in the case of the Hanaho cabs, who had the most money falling out of you-know-where.

The point, as far as I can see, is to keep alive the memory of those incredible games we spent all our money on when we were 15. To keep alive the spirit of innovation and experimentation embodied by those early game designers. To document, record and preserve the emergence of a brand new art form. To keep fresh the memory of saturdays spent piling quarters into Tempest or Galaga or Section Z. To show our children playing their 3d rendered, story-driven, pixel shaded eye candy where it all came from.

Do me a favor the next time you find the reason you're doing this getting lost under all the dimensions and soldering and T-moulding. Take a minute to load up Dave Dries' Arcade '84 video (c'mon I know you have a copy on your hard drive) sit back and watch. And remember.

As long as we do it, who cares how?

--
DR

PS - Oh, and erm...Hi  

[1UP]

Hear hear!  When I got into Mame, all I was really interested in was playing all the old games I enjoyed when I was a kid.  I was always disappointed with the various ports made for consoles in the 80's, and the MS "Return of Arcade" wasn't really the same, either.  I was glad just to finally have all the classics with original graphics, scoring, sound, and attract modes on my PC.

When I found out about BYOAC, I thought, "that's cool, but you've gotta be nuts to actually build or restore a cabinet!"   It was only after I decided to get a faster computer for graphics use that I thought about making the old one into a game machine (so I could play while my animations were rendering when working at home.)

Almost a year later, I'm 75% there.  My control panel is built, my arcade controls and coin door are hacked, all I need is a monitor and some wood.  I'm really tempted to let it stay as is for awhile, since everything's working anyway.  But I'm sure in the next month or two, I'll have some free time, and won't be able to resist!

I'd be lying if I said it's been all fun and games.  If I could've bought a machine with all the options I wanted, I'd have done it in a heartbeat.  I'm more interested in just playing games at this point than cutting any more wood, or doing any more wiring.

I could've easily bought one or two of my favorite classics, working and in the original cabinet, for less than I've spent on this project.  If I have the money and space to do so in the future,  I'm sure I'll have my own little mini arcade in the back room, full of old machines that someone else has fixed up.  Is there something wrong with that?  Isn't arcade collecting a legitimate hobby too?

Some people around here seem to have the wrong idea about things.  There isn't an ONLY way to do things, just the way that's right for you.  We're all here to have fun, some people are just willing to put more work in than others.  I think that it would be insane to build my own spinner, because the Oscar is so good and I can afford it.  Does that make me a lamer compared to the guy who's gluing washers together?  Some people have enough free time to DIY and save money, others have the money but not much free time.  It's a tradeoff, and one is not necessarily better than the other.  To me, time IS money, and if I can afford to buy something that will save me a weekend of hard work, I will.

And, to get back on topic, it will always be either expensive or time consuming to buy or build your own cabinet, so while anyone probably could have their own cabinet, I'm sure we'll will still be a proud minority of geeks who actually go for it!