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so what got you into owning your own arcade game?
Crowquill:
Somewhere around 1991 a friend of mine lived next door to an auction house. He told me about an upcoming auction of games. I ended up with a non-working "Crazy Kong" ($12). With the few people I knew I couldn't find anyone who could fix it and couldn't afford to pay someone to come out and fix it. It sat there for years as I moved away to college. Probably around 1996 another friend started collecting arcade games. We hauled Crazy Kong over and with a $30 power supply it worked again (and we found out it had a Donkey KING Junior PCB). I had no space so it stayed there.
Around 2000 I discovered that emulators had become more than just a novelty and ran games at full speed including Shinobi. I discovered this site, I started building a stand-alone control panel, and figured a MAME cab would be easy since I already had the cabinet at my parents' house. Since MAME isn't capable of playing some games at full speed I bought a generic JAMMA cabinet to run PCBs in. Now I have a beat-up Ms Pac cocktail I'm fixing/MAME-ing and I picked up a Neo Geo 2-slot MVS cabinet last month. I think I'm officially out of room until the next game comes along. ;D
spacies:
For me it was in 1982.
My sister had just finished school and my Mum had a chance to buy a store opposite our current store.
She asked us what we should put in there and we all said "AN ARCADE"
A couple of weeks later, we opened up shop. With my sister as the manager, we had 50 machines, 5 pinballs and a pool table.
I was 12 and we ran it for 5 years.
We also bought the store next door 2 years later and knocked a hole in the wall and built some skateboard and BMX ramps inside.
My brothers and I would organize midnight meetings with mates and we would play games and ride the ramps 'til the wee small hours. Oh what a time we had
So arcade machines are in my blood!
Hawk Daddy:
Well I've always liked the classics. I had always wanted to build a MAME machine, but never did it. Then one day I stopped into a little thrift store and there it was a working galaga for $50 I bought it, and then I went back and bought 2 more from the guy, and found a millipede for $40, and Now I've got a mame machine, a galaga, and I'm working on getting this millipede back working and then I think I'm going to just take it east and buy only what I want unless I can find them for really cheap like I have been doing. At 19 years old I think I have the starts of a good collection.
Hawk
rlemmon:
--- Quote from: spacies on June 09, 2007, 05:49:29 pm ---
For me it was in 1982.
My sister had just finished school and my Mum had a chance to buy a store opposite our current store.
She asked us what we should put in there and we all said "AN ARCADE"
A couple of weeks later, we opened up shop. With my sister as the manager, we had 50 machines, 5 pinballs and a pool table.
I was 12 and we ran it for 5 years.
We also bought the store next door 2 years later and knocked a hole in the wall and built some skateboard and BMX ramps inside.
My brothers and I would organize midnight meetings with mates and we would play games and ride the ramps 'til the wee small hours. Oh what a time we had
So arcade machines are in my blood!
--- End quote ---
You Lucky bastard :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:
What happend to the arcade did you have to close it or did you sell it ?
I started buy building a lusid arcade cab with a playstation 2 and x arcade control panel. It was ugly as hell but it sure was lots of fun to play. I used to play the namco museum disc allnight long. Once i discovered Mame it took a good while for me to figure out how to run it.
When I finally did I built a replica robocop cab with a pc and Mame 32 along with a magstick and ipac. It is honestly my favorite toy i own. I love trying to find old games that i have never played, Then playing through the night.
jace055:
My Dad was a district manager for a gas station chain in the early 80's. So, my brother and I always had pinball and arcade machines growing up. I actually found BYOAC looking for a solution to fix my mappy cocktail cabinet a few years ago. I decided that building a cabinet was going to be my next hobby.