Good deal?

[groovy9]

Hypothetically, say you could buy the following item for $350.  Good deal, ok deal, or what's the point?  Assume all included games are legally licensed, regardless of the current state of the universe.

It's a small tabletop arcade.  We're talking no bigger than it needs to be to comfortably house the control panel and monitor.  Here are the specs:

* 15" LCD monitor
* 8-way joystick, 3 buttons + coin/start/escape/etc
* Computer is an old 500Mhz to 1Ghz Intel/AMD with 256MB ram
* Custom front end.  Entirely controlled by joy/buttons.  Shows rotating ingame/title/cab screen shots and year/mfr/etc for highlighted game.  Create your own favorite lists.  Sort by category.  Boots from CD.  OS, Mame, and roms are all on the CD.  Power it on and the front end pops up.
* High scores and custom settings are stored on a USB flash drive.
* No external controls aside from power switch, control panel, and volume knob
* Add a second player by plugging a gamepad into the back (game pad included)
* No-frills cabinet.  Rounded edges rather than T-molding.  Simple paint job, no decals, lacquered control panel rather than laminated.  Fixed control panel.  Rear door access to internals.

So we're talking a complete, power-it-on-and-play tabletop arcade equipped to play older games that had a joystick and 3 buttons or less.  Never mind how the games get on the CD for now. 

If you see something like that for $350, what are you thinking?

[grueinthebox]

I'm not in the market for one, and if I was I'd want to see t-molding on it rather than rounded corners (it's cheap and doesn't really add much if any additional construction) but other than that it sounds like a good price.

[Dervacumen]

The price is good but Im wondering about the USB key thing.  I don't know if someone is going to want to keep one around just to access their settings.  Maybe a way to keep the configs and high scores on the boot up cd OR the USB key as an option.

[groovy9]

The USB key is inside the cabinet and not generally accessible.  You wouldn't even know it's there.  Booting off the CD means that in order to preserve your high scores across reboots, you need some sort of writable storage. 

That's where the USB key comes in. 

[AKA Kaytrim]

  This sounds like a cheep POS.   I wouldn't want anything like this in my house.  Just remember that you get what you pay for and I think that this is something to stay away. 

Run away, far away


Kaytrim TTFN

[Eric(Goddahavit)]

I would say you are describing my bartop with less configuring and work



Unfortunatly the reason I made it was to actually make it..

It might depend on the games it actually plays and the look of it.

Price doesnt sound too bad though, a mameroom designs cabinet is 2 bills before shipping.

are you looking for feedback or buyers?

[groovy9]

Take yours, chop off the marquee right above the monitor, lose the trackball, and you have what I'm picturing.  Just seeing if the consensus was "yippee" or something to that effect, since I don't see anything like this available at that price.

I've built a full-size cab, and I put together the run-from-CD thing because I was afraid my hard drive would die and I'd lose it all.  Then I sold the big cab and got all the stuff to build myself a bartop with a ton of bells and whistles (light guns, trackball, spinner, etc).  Then I decided I'd like to build a cheap one as a gift for a couple family members, but not at $600+ or whatever my personal one cost me.

Did some research and figured out I could do it cheap enough to be worthwhile.  But that means really going no-frills, which greatly simplifies the build effort.  So I thought I might sort of mass-produce 5 of 'em for family and friends and if the build time isn't too bad per arcade, maybe it's worth selling some locally.

I haven't worked out what I'd do about support, though.  That's a big one, as getting the cost down means putting a used monitor and computer in it.  I'd probably have to do a 60-day warranty, then you're on your own.  That'll scare off quite a few folks, but it's not like I'd be cranking 'em out like Dell...

Just sort of thinking out loud here

[Dervacumen]

The USB key is inside the cabinet and not generally accessible.  You wouldn't even know it's there.  Booting off the CD means that in order to preserve your high scores across reboots, you need some sort of writable storage. 

That's where the USB key comes in. 

I understand now.

I think the concept is viable, however you may be looking in the wrong place for confirmation.  Most of the people on this board want to build thier own, and have as much if not more fun creating their masterpiece than they do playing the games.

That said, it might find an audience for the small group of people who don't want to or can't build their own machine.

If you're booting off the CD, what is the benefit to not having this an installable program from such?  That would remove the need for a usb key for saving settings.   If it's just for a few friends I can *understand* the licensing issue, but if you want other buyers...uh...well...I only have games that I own the original boards for.

[leapinlew]

I think $350 is a tough price point to meet. Considering the LCD screen, and then all the little things.

[groovy9]

I'm pretty sure I can get my total cost down under $200.  That requires going with a used monitor and computer, but all new control panel bits.  You'd be amazed at what you can buy computer parts for if you're not picky and know where to look.  $25 systems in the 500Mhz/256MB/cdrom/case range can be had all day long, for example, in big metro areas where local pickup is an option.

I'll get one cranked out in the next couple weeks and see what the final tally is.  The only real question is what I can consistently get 15" LCDs for. 

[TOK]

You had me as a definite yes until I read it was going to be made out of flea market/yard sale parts.
I'd love to have a bartop, but don't have much time to build so a quality bartop under $400 is very appealing. When the price gets over that (which doesn't take much), I'm back into the realm of wanting to do it myself.

[shardian]

If you are going to use near end of life PC's, new fans at a minimum should be installed to protect what life is left in the PC.

Also, it is actually LESS work for you to route out a slot for T-molding than take the time to round over everything. Also, I don't think $5 in T-molding will exactly break the bank for a bar-top.

It makes me cringe every time someone says they will be doing a round over edge.

[groovy9]

Yeah, I already ordered some T-molding.  I'll be putting a nice, big, new 4" case fan an it.  I'll think about new CPU fans, though that might be a challenge, since I'll be going with whatever CPU I get cheap that day.

Old PC parts are really very durable in an application like this.  Your hard drive is the single most fragile part, and I've eliminated it.  Second would be fans.  Motherboard/CPU/Memory/Monitor all generally last for years and years.

[AKA Kaytrim]

  I wish to apologize for my previous post.  The first time I read this thread I didn't realize what you were doing.  I thought that you were looking for opinions on something that you were going to buy not sell.  After reading the rest of this thread I see that you could have a market for this if you can get around the legality issue.  Just look at the machines that are being sold at Target and Costco for around $400  Here is a link to the RetroBlast review http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/biggames.html.  While the machine you plan on building would not be for most of the people on these boards there are so many more people that don't have the knowledge or skills to build something of this nature.

A couple of suggestions, you said in your last post that the hardware you plan on using will last a while.  I agree for the most part.  CDs however can get scratched to the point that they don't work anymore.  This would not be a problem though if you plan to mount the CD ROM Drive inside the cabinet with no external access.  Have you looked into using a flash drive for the OS storage?  There are two threads that I am aware of on the boards where the builder used a IDE to Flash adapter.   By plugging in a 1G flash card you would have plenty of room for the OS, MAME, font end and ROMS.

[groovy9]

I wish to apologize for my previous post.  The first time I read this thread I didn't realize what you were doing. 

No need

Have you looked into using a flash drive for the OS storage? 

I do plan to put the drive inside, and possibly zip-tied closed   I thought of the flash drive idea as well, just to get rid of another moving part (the CD drive), but a CD drive is $5, blank CDs are 25 cents, and my boot CD is already done.  Going the flash route would be prohibitively expensive.