Newbie here

[hefe]

Hiya, Im in the information gathering stage of building my own machine. Ive been reading these boards, and also purchased the book by the person who runs this site. I had a few questions.

Tempest is one of my favorite games, and I will want to use a spinner.. I see that Oscar made a tempest style spinner but they arent taking orders. Anyone know of a good substitute? Is it possible to wire an original tempest spinner to use?

The last question, are there any sites like Starrom ( out of business) where I purchase game rom images?

Thanks!

Steve

[Kaytrim]

Welcome to BYOAC. 

First off, discussions of where to get rom files are not allowed here.  Though with a little searching you can find what you are looking for, though not on this site.  Look at the stickied post "Before Asking For Help,..." at the top of this forum and click on the rules link in there.

For the spinner there are a few vendors that sell a spinner, Groovy Game Gear just introduced a new model that takes up the same amount of space as a normal button.  Slick Stick has a spinner as well.  If you are patient and lucky you can get an Oscar Spinner on eBay. You can also look in the BYOAC Vendor Stores forum for sellers that have controls at some of the best prices around.

Last but not least get to know how to use the forum search system.  There is a button at the top of each page here.  Don't be afraid to ask a question you may not get an answer right away but there are plenty of old hats around here that are willing to help.

[shardian]

I believe he was asking were there any legal roms he could purchase, which is okay to discuss--except for the fact there aren't any now. Star Roms sold legal games, but they shut down a while back. There are no other legal vendors of roms available at this time.

As to your spinner, yes an original optical spinner from tron/tempest/arkanoid can be interfaced with MAME thru the use of a mouse hack or a commercial interface like the opti-pac from ultimarc, or the optiwiz from groovy game gear.

Welcome to the boards!

[hefe]

Thanks for the response! I did read the newbie guide and it answered a bunch of questions. I wasnt trying to ask about anything illegal, just wether sites still existed that still legally sold ROMS. Thanks agian!

*Goes back to researching*  

[clockwork]

The Project Arcade book has a section dedicated to ROM legalities and sources of legal ROMs. Essentially, there aren't any. Hanho was mentioned, but it appears you only get their ROMs (50+ Capcom games) if you buy one of their systems. Too bad no one can get a legal distribution set up. Starroms was a great idea.

For spinners, I've read good things about the Slikstik Tornado. A buddy of mine just bought an Apache Controls spinner that he seems to like, though it's quite expensive.