Question on Konami "Big Arcade" modification

[FrankieViturello]

Hey all,

New member, but long-time arcade enthusiast.

I own an original Dig-Dug cabinet which I've had for about 10 years, and this year I purchased the Konami Big Arcade multi-game unit.

I've noticed that all the games on it look to be the original arcade roms, emulated on some type of very basic dedicated PC CPU (no hard drive ... possibly a flash rom) and Mame type software. I say that it's likely MAME because the Castlevania game on it is not the original arcade rom, but the Play Choice 10 NES rom.

I read the post about the Midway Big Arcade unit, and how that was modified to accept a playstation in the video input and the controller inputs changed so it could be controlled via the on-board joysticks, etc.

My questions are

1) has anybody discovered any way to do something similar to the Konami unit? That version has NO video input that are accessible through the unit.

2) since this appears to be some type of PC / MAME based emulation going on ... has anybody figured out any way to swap out the roms for anything else? I know that whatever type of PC they're running these things on isn't very fast (probably a Pentium II at best) because Contra chugs a bit in spots.

I do really like this unit, but I'd love to be able to do video input / use the controllers as I'd like to create my own Dragon's Lair / Space Ace cabinet using a PS2 and the Dragon's Lair DVD.

I know it's far from a perfect setup, but a poor man's Dragon's Lair is better than none at all!

Thanks in advance for any help / thoughts. I've browsed the posts and you all seem like a great lot!

-Frankie

::Update::

Out of curiosity, I opened up the unit to take a look at what it's got going on inside ... apparently, it's got a 15 inch computer monitor on it's side, and the input to that monitor can be accessed ... however, I don't think that there's a way to use a PS2 to VGA box and get the output image to display on it's side...

[korendog]

Frankie,
I'd just like to say welcome to the group.  I'm not familiar with the Konami Big Arcade you have, but I'm sure someone on here is.  I'll try to help you out with whatever you need, but my expertise is in PC based MAME conversions.  I've never done a console hack.  My suggestion would be to search prior posts and hit the web too.  Google is your friend. Good luck with your project. 

[FrankieViturello]

Thanks!

I'm fairly certain that this modification wouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world ... since it turns out that I do have access to the VGA monitor input ...

... I honestly think that the hardest thing would be figuring out how to get a PS2 to VGA box to default it's display to a sideways display like the on-board hardware of this cabinet does.

Controls wouldn't even be much of an issue ... I wouldn't have a problem using a wireless PS2 controller if I could get the PS2 to display properly on screen.

Thanks for the response.

Here's the unit that I'm talking about ...

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Electronic-Games-43100-Konami/dp/B000GYV4W8

[korendog]

Frankie,
I took a look and now have a little better idea of what you have there.  If it has a computer monitor in there you should be able to find yourself an old computer to run mame on and hook it up.  Not sure why you went the Konami big arcade route to begin with if you wanted to do some modifications.  Seems it would have been easier to start from scratch and get exactly what you wanted.  Just my two cents, but that's neither here nor there now.  Best if you could take some pics of the inside for me and the rest of the BYOACers to take a look at.  Then we can see what you got and go from there.

[FrankieViturello]

Well, to be honest, it wasn't my initial intention to mod the unit...

...I just started to get curious, and like you said, google ... and, well, I wound up here.

Actually, a PC would probably be a better choice and I do have a unit that I could get to work with this setup, as well as the Arcade Perfect Dragon's Lair disc.

I bet it would even be easy to get a PC to auto-display sideways somehow.

[korendog]

Yeah, I would guess a PC would be easier than moding a console, but like I said I've never done one.  Is there a way you could rotate the monitor back to horizontal?

[knave]

Total speculation on some of this but I'll throw some random thoughts.

If you mod the cab so the monitor is horizontal you won't have any problems getting DL to run.  I'm pretty sure you can get a PC to display sideways but on a 15 inch monitor I can't imagine DL looking good with that setup if it's even playable at all.

If you do want to rotate the monitor you will loose the ability to play the stock games.  Although you could play them in Mame.

If you are going to all the trouble of rotating the monitor and fiddling with it's mounts I would just throw a larger display in there too.  then the Vertical games in Mame would look more like their original size.

If you own the DL disks I think you can download all the files you need to emulate Dragons Lair (legaly) from the Daphne website.

Oh, and no matter what you choose, I'd replace the controls with a "real" set of buttons and joystick.

Game on. 

[SavannahLion]

Just something to consider.

My ATI Windows based laptop allows me to rotate the screen in any four directions, (90, 180 and 0 degrees). It's buried in the Catalyst Control Center drivers.

My nVidia Linux based PC allowed the same ability via a small utility. (I think it has the additional ability to mirror the desktop... absolutely no idea what it's intended for).

I've never tried flipping the monitor with either of these systems other than humorous pranking on unwitting people who want to use my computers. But I figure if you want to pop in a PC and save some effort of screwing around with reorienting the monitor, it might be something of interest.