Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: paulwgraber on April 19, 2018, 11:30:11 pm

Title: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: paulwgraber on April 19, 2018, 11:30:11 pm
Hi all. I am a newbie to this forum. I am building a very high tech game room with Atmos and a 4K OLED TV for my modern systems. I am also building a classic MAME CAB for arcade games only to be put in the game room as well. Because Im all about authenticity im using a Makivision 27" CRT for the cab.  Well I was also going to place an old Toshiba TV in my gameroom  for my classic consoles: Genesis, NES, Atari, Dreamcast....so on and so forth. However, my game room is not huge and I am figuring it will be somewhat crowded with all these TV's. So I was wondering if its possible to hook my classic consoles up to my CAB to just use the CRT via some sort of video inputs and use the cabs speakers for the audio. I know you can emulate these systems but I have all the original systems and prefer to play the games as they were meant to be played. Wasn't sure if this was possible but figured it would save me some room. Not sure if the makavision could even do Component, Composite or Svideo. Sorry for the long post but just wanted to make sure I was clear. Im sure I will be posting a lot once I start my Cab.
Thanks
PG
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: keilmillerjr on April 20, 2018, 10:58:14 am
There is converter boards. Your better off with a 15khz crt tv and buying an A/V switch from Walmart.
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: Osirus23 on April 20, 2018, 11:34:43 am
Sounds like a headache that isn't worth it. FFS just use emulators, you already are for arcade anyway.
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: paigeoliver on April 20, 2018, 02:48:03 pm
It isn't worth doing.

There are only 3 really popular consoles that control great with arcade controls, the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis. However the Atari 2600 is almost all arcade ports, and if you have a computer hooked up you can play the originals, so no point. Nes and Genesis work fine. Anything Super Nes or newer has the problem of directional shoulder buttons that and then analog controls. Even Nintendo's own arcade version of the Snes basically had gamepads and not joysticks.
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: Titchgamer on April 20, 2018, 05:50:20 pm
It isn't worth doing.

There are only 3 really popular consoles that control great with arcade controls, the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis. However the Atari 2600 is almost all arcade ports, and if you have a computer hooked up you can play the originals, so no point. Nes and Genesis work fine. Anything Super Nes or newer has the problem of directional shoulder buttons that and then analog controls. Even Nintendo's own arcade version of the Snes basically had gamepads and not joysticks.

SNES plays fine on a 6 button setup.
I use buttons 3&6 for the shoulder buttons.
Genesis is up to 6 buttons also but mostly only on the fighters and a few other games with complex controls.
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: paigeoliver on April 30, 2018, 04:09:10 pm
It isn't worth doing.

There are only 3 really popular consoles that control great with arcade controls, the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis. However the Atari 2600 is almost all arcade ports, and if you have a computer hooked up you can play the originals, so no point. Nes and Genesis work fine. Anything Super Nes or newer has the problem of directional shoulder buttons that and then analog controls. Even Nintendo's own arcade version of the Snes basically had gamepads and not joysticks.

SNES plays fine on a 6 button setup.
I use buttons 3&6 for the shoulder buttons.
Genesis is up to 6 buttons also but mostly only on the fighters and a few other games with complex controls.

Genesis used a Streetfighter layout on its 6 button controller and thus those extra buttons were almost never used directionally like they were on SNES.

I also map the shoulder buttons onto the Streetfighter layout but it has never felt natural. Nintendo agrees and that is why the Super System had a control panel that looked like this.
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: pbj on April 30, 2018, 04:57:05 pm
3 options....

1 - swipe a board from an old laserdisc arcade game.  Those had Composite -> CGA adapters.  Sell for about $10-15 if you can actually find one.

2 - buy a CV-03 if you can find someone that actually stocks it....

http://alvaamusement.com/id4.html (http://alvaamusement.com/id4.html)

3 - do something crazy like convert composite to HDMI and then the HDMI to CGA.  Two adapters. 

 :cheers:
Title: Re: Hooking up classic systems such as an Atari or SNES to my Cab. Possible??
Post by: Titchgamer on April 30, 2018, 07:51:10 pm
It isn't worth doing.

There are only 3 really popular consoles that control great with arcade controls, the Atari 2600, the NES, and the Genesis. However the Atari 2600 is almost all arcade ports, and if you have a computer hooked up you can play the originals, so no point. Nes and Genesis work fine. Anything Super Nes or newer has the problem of directional shoulder buttons that and then analog controls. Even Nintendo's own arcade version of the Snes basically had gamepads and not joysticks.

SNES plays fine on a 6 button setup.
I use buttons 3&6 for the shoulder buttons.
Genesis is up to 6 buttons also but mostly only on the fighters and a few other games with complex controls.

Genesis used a Streetfighter layout on its 6 button controller and thus those extra buttons were almost never used directionally like they were on SNES.

I also map the shoulder buttons onto the Streetfighter layout but it has never felt natural. Nintendo agrees and that is why the Super System had a control panel that looked like this.

Feels as natural as any other control scheme if you give it a chance.

Ide actually prefer to play Street fighter on a 6 button layout than 4 and 2 shoulders.