Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: bossyman15 on August 11, 2005, 02:09:01 am
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here's mine
i signed up for X-arcade newsletter. one month i got the newsletter with this link to this site http://www.peterhirschberg.com/arcade/gameroom.htm
i looked around a thought "wow!!!!" and i looked at link section there, i clicked on http://www.coinopwarehouse.com/ link and looked at pictures there.
as i looked at the pictures, i thought "oh my god that's so sad. (i did really felt so sad inside) i remember back then i played those games in arcade and they were new and now look at them! they are rotting away!"
then i don't really remember what i did next but i know i googled arcade and went to BYOAC site but at that time i didn't care what that site was because i don't know what that site was lol.
about 1 week later or so i came back to BYOAC after few times and when to this fourm and now i know this site.
THAT'S MY TEE STORY!
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Referred here from SRK when I was researching how to build an arcade stick for PS2 fighters.
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It was a pop-up at an adult site. I clicked it thinking I was gunna see boobs.
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Same way I find everything else:
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Right, lets see...
Started looking into making a cab for a college project last september. Planned cab using all kinds of internet sources, mainly the mameworld.net tech forum. Started to build cab in december, two weeks prior to finishing I actually found the message boards on this site, all together now D'OH!!
I had seen this site before but didnt realise it had a forum. If only I had found it earlier im sure my cab would have turned out much better. Oh well, at least I know where y'all are for future projects. :)
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I googled my way here and it took me ages before i found the forum section. (I was waaaaay to busy looking at the examples ;D) Once i found the forum it also took a long time before i had the balls to post...
Glad i did...
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About mid-way through completing my first cabinet, a friend asked me if I was going to add it to the BYOAC database. Not having heard of the place before, I asked him for the link, and the rest was history.
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one day I was carrying my bucket, on a trip to nantucket, when I was approached by this odd fellow..........
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I think I discovered it after discovering MAME. Didn't realize there was a message board at first, and I'd never posted on any message boards before. I don't remember the circumstances, though. That was like 3 years ago or something.
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Google. Looking for MAME-specific things to do.
When I was younger (Nintendo 8-bit Years), I remember seeing a homemade cabinet for the NES in an issue of Nintendo Power I got, and that planted the seed.... Now I'm here. :)
- FA
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I found MAME. Then I took the chance and typed in www.arcadecontrols.com and wallah..... I found home.
BTW - That NES Cabinet was done by one of our one. Nannuu. ;)
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After messing around with MAME for a while (Wow! I can play the arcade version of MK II in MY OWN HOUSE!), I was doing my daily slashdot rounds when I read a comment linking to this site.
That was two years ago, and I've never spent so much money on toys in so little time before :D
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A burning bush told me about this site...
;)
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I was looking for GBA ROMs and came across MAME - Googled MAME and landed here.
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I have no idea how I found it. But it was weeks wasted at work afterward. I started drawing up a rotating cabinet and a week later 1UP's hit the front page, that thing is great. I looked through the examples for months before I ever hit the message board. Never been to a message board before because of the usual internet childishness of people. But after spending more months reading posts I noticed that the guys here are much nicer than a normal board.
Funny, I'm here so often I feel like I know most of you guys. Too bad I don't post much, I tend to be more of a browser :P. Now that I have kids and don't ever go out anymore, you've become the guys that make me laugh during the day. Thanks!
I've been here 3 years and even though I've made plenty of cabinets for other people, I still can't decide what my own cabinet should be. I've redesigned at least 458 times. Should I make a ridiculous rotating 4 player or a nice simple Taito style or a rotating or a simple.....
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I found the link on the left side of mameworld.net in 2001. I don't normally sign up for forums, only once in a while hit one in a Google search, so I didn't think much of the forum and just tried to make sense of the main page and all the info there.
Now I'm hooked. Just trying to reserve the ability to post for when I have a pressing question or actually know something unique (or that the experts are sick of answering), not a very frequent happening.
Cheers,
KenToad
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I was reading an article in Maximum PC which was a project on building an arcade. It listed this as the site to go to. I came I read for a while and asked a few re-affirming questions and started building. 6 MAME(tm) based cabs, a few restores, a jukebox project and a couple of slots later and here I am.
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Well I'll have to admit it REALLY all started for me when I bought a working machine - a Killer Instinct. The place where I grew up playing it was selling it because it was too violent for their family fun center. So I got online to learn more about arcade owning. That led to MAME and that led to here.
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I don't remember. It was a long time ago though. Back when the I-pac came out. I don't think it was much of a message board back then and I didn't know anything, so I didn't register :-[.
Now I still don't know anything, but I need a website to switch windows to when someone walks in during my 24-hour a day porn addiction. :angel:
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Trying to find a way to plug a nes controller to a computer. Somehow found the page in this site that talks about it. Bookmarked the page about four years ago. Lost interest in emulation. Looking at the site 2 years ago noticed the forums and lerked around until I had a question about a mamewah problem I was having.
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After finding MAME "again" after not using it for a few years, I did some google searches and wound up here. I wound up reading examples for days and days and finally noticed the forum. I lurked for a month or two, signed up, and now it is my daily means of procrastination :)
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I was at the Costco Home store in Kirkland, WA (only one I think) and they had an Ultracrap machine there.
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Being a hobbiest game programmer I was on the forum at http://www.allegro.cc and someone posted Jubei (http://cmdrtaco.net/jubei/) and I thought it'd be amazingly awsome if when I went back to school I showcased one of my projects in. So I clicked a link and ended up here... 3 years later I started actually using the forum.
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I already had some knowlage about mame, I bought the project arcade book, and found the website link in there.
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I was looking into buying an arcade cabinet (either Simpsons Bowling or Marble Madness). Though some deft Googling, I stumbled upon this site. I spent the rest of the evening reading the contents of BYOAC and since that day two years ago, I've been keeping up with the progress in cab building (even though I have yet to show my very unfinished masterpiece). The BYOAC boards remain the only message boards that keep my consistently coming back when I grew bored of others in a month or so. I credit all the bacon, Floyd10, and political posts.
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I was looking on cab plans and all kind of info I could find about it, long time ago, and in almost all the documenting cab building pages I found was a link to BYOAC, saying how important it was, a must visit.
Odd thing is that I just "found" the forums last month. in the past, all I did was browse through the examples page, reading other people's achievements...
and here am I, building my first cab right now.
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I was looking at a popular science magazine and they had a article on how to build an arcade. I went to one of the sites they mentioned and that site had a link to here.
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I'll be honest, I forgot, its been to long. :P
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saw something on TechTV a few years back about building a cocktail cabinet. I figured if THey could order all the parts to make on then I could build one. Caught the bug did all the research I could used google alot. Then bought Project Arcade the book came out I decided to join the forums..........
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I've been a big game fan since I can't remember how far back, and my bro and his roomies in college all had Zsnes and Nesticle running, but none of em could get Mame running. I had just got a PC, and I discovered the world of emulation, when I found MAME and figured out exactly how to use it. Then I started reading about these mame cabinet things people were making on the little link of cabs at arcadeathome dot com. I started searching through the cabs, looking at their websites, and a few of them pointed here. I showed up on the chat room when I was 16, built my first arcade joystick, got my first cab to build on when I was 17, became an OP on the chat room after major server problems, and now I've gone idle for the last year because of school.
- anyways, my mame story in a nut shell
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I can't remember ???
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Saint's book.
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I don't remember when it was exactly... I can tell you about 6 months after finding this place I started testing the ability to have two TrackBalls to play Marble Madness (there was a special build for Mame to do it back then Optimame? can't remember). TwistyGrip had just come out with their blueprints for the StarWars yoke and they showed me how to hack a mouse into a spinner.
That's what I remember.
TM
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the first time i found this place i was looking for a guide on how to connect my N64 pad to my PC, the first time i actuallly posted on the forums was when i was looking for how to connect pedals to my flight Yoke
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I ran out of things to do with all the computer parts lying around the house, so I googled "what to do with an old pc". One of the answers was build a retro games machine, from there it led to Mame and then BYOAC.
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X-Arcade was the cause.
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Many moons ago I got an itch to relive my younger years and acquire a Galaga machine. This is probably my all time favorite. I made a few trips to Super Auctions in Dallas in the hopes of picking up something I could clean up and/or restore.
I was discouraged by the prices these beat up and some converted machines went for. I gave up on the idea because it was out of my price range.
I then got to thinking that I perhaps I could build my own replica machine, acquire the boards, monitor, controls, etc cheaper than the $800+ I used to see some really beat up machines go for.
Of course, google is our friend. I discovered MAME and BYOAC probably in the same surf session. Once I got a couple of games operational I was hooked.
Why build a single replica machine when I can build a multigame. I went that route and completed my first upright at what is probably 3 years ago now. I've built a few additional machines and bartops since then for friends and family....and I've still got plans to do a replica or restore on a Galaga at some point in time just for nostalgia sake.
Cheers!
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I found it on one of the old search engines like HotBot or something. 1999 was a long time ago.
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I stumbled across....aw damn, I can't even remember the name of the site. It's the one run by that tool who used to go by Cyberpunk here, until he started making idle threats about having his team of lawyers shut this website down. After that he pretty much became universally hated so rarely shows up here anymore. Anyway, whatever else I think of him, I have to admit that I'm grateful that his site led me to this site.
I read the site a bunch of times before I stumbled across the goldmines that are the forums. And I hung around reading them regularly for months before posting for the first time.
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why did he threated to shut this website down? ???
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The local TV magazine ran a short one page article on emulation. I started to look for info on the net and ended up here. Hooked for life now I guess. The other day my wife told me not to sell one of my cabs because she liked it, I nearly cried.
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It came to me in a dream!
Nope -- found Supercade, and that linked me here.
ScoopKW
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I read the "Build Your Own Arcade Machine" book review on Retroblast picked the book up that same day at Borders and was perusing arcadecontrols.com that night. ;D
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I found out about Saint and the first incarnation of this site through davesclassic forum in '99 or '00...it was a long time ago, so I forget.
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oh man! i just saw this topic on BOYAC's main front page! nice to feel like i'm special! ;D
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Geez all you youngins.... my Mame and BYOAC obcessment started with this small Slashdot article back in mid 2002:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/25/1815202&tid=10
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fortune cookie
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Geez all you youngins.... my Mame and BYOAC obcessment started with this small Slashdot article back in mid 2002:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/25/1815202&tid=10
Yep, that's the one that got me started too.
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I read about the Hanaho HotRod joystick, and bought one immediately. It blew my mind. After I bought that, I started digging deeper, and read about some of the arcade cabinets and modular control panels. Meanwhile, I was becoming increasingly aware that I couldn't play a satisfying game of Ikari Warriors, 720, or Discs of Tron with the HotRod. Somewhere in there I encountered this web site and started asking questions. With this message forum, there's always a team of people working on my silly little problem with me, and it's sure been fun.
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I was watching the movie Soylent Green, about a year ago and saw the Computer Space cabinet. That spiked my interest and I decided to research the history of it. Through much Googleing I ended up at this excellent site and was amazed at the community that was apart of this hobby. I then got sucked in that night and read the entire Step by Step Newbie Guide. I thought to myself "I have to build myself a cabinet." I looked over that Newbie Guide at least 10 other times the next day and still sometimes go back to it. A couple of months after I started reading the Main Forum maybe once a week, but now it's increased to everyday I must visit the Main Forum, Software Forum and Consoles at the very least. I love this site!!! ;D
Thankyou, Saint for providing this site. I probably would have never gotten started without this site and the book.
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I bought a working Tron machine in 1997 at the community thrift store on half price tuesday for $12.50. I got it home and it sorta worked for a few games and then crapped out.
I hopped on the internet at work and searched for free tron emulators, and stumbled across a very early version of a certain arcade machine emulator, and kept up with it. It occurred to me almost immediately that I could "repair" my Tron with a computer and the emulator, but I didn't do anything about it for years.
The Tron machine died in a flood. Very sad. My parents thought nothing was salvagable and threw it away. Much sadder. In 2002 I found a $40 Atari Football in another thrift store, and immediately got on the internet to find parts to turn it into a Generic Arcade Machine Emulator (GAME) machine.
Found Ultimarc.
Found BYOAC.
Read BYOAC front to back a few dozen times, built my cab, and then (feeling now qualified) I got on the forums. I wish I'd been here before I maimed the A.F., Would've done a much better job.
Been here for years... try only to post something if I have something to contribute :)
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I got into MAME with version .36 and was addicted, but it sucked using keyboard and game pads...I decided I wanted to build a cabinet and see if I could figure a way to use PC joysticks...seemed like too much work, so I never did anything, then I bought an XArcade...it was just what I needed to spark the urge to build a cabinet again...I found BYOAC, when I was googling to see if anyone else had built a cab around their XArcade...I forgot about doing that and decided to build my own controls after finding this site, and buying THE book...
For the record, I really appreciate all the help people have given me since I've joined the forum...I've met a few really kewl people, learned a lot...thank you.
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For some reason I decided to click cmdrtaco information on Slashdot and then saw his Jubei and knew I had to build my own. It's kind of intresting how many people found this place through his site.
Now I'm a proud owner of a woodgrain cabinet... sniff sniff
-FTen
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I can't remember
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Midway classics ---> Retrogaming ---> Hotrod ---> The main board for 6 months -----> the forums
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I originally wanted to own an arcade machine, I think I actually wanted to buy a moonwalker, ( which I am going to build now..)but couldnt find one. On ebay I saw they had the pcb alot, but no cabinet, so I started searching for links on "building your own arcade machine". I found pocketz site ... "arcadegames.home.mindspring.com" and thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I actually saw links to this site before hand, but never clicked on them, because it was just "build your own arcade controls" and not "build your own arcade machine" (maybe we should change the name, since it is about building the whole cabinet..) . I then emailed pocketz (whatever happened to him by the way, hes got the best machines in my opinion...) asking him to make me a step by step guide. He then reffered me to this site....I looked around for a while...and the rest is history.
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Heh gotta love the youngsters...
I've been with the site nearly since the beginning.
Back in my day everybody's systems were to slow to use mame (other than maybe pacman with frameskip turned on).
I found the site while searching yahoo (yes byoac predates a time when google was the search engien of choice) for a way to interface my snes pads to my computer to better play final fight on Callus. I soon ditched the snes pads idea and went to work on my first panel.
Only a few years later, when cps2 emulation was achieved did I start becoming an active member due to the lack of front ends and non -mame compatibility at the time. But that's a story for another day.
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think i followed a link off www.mameworld.net
i was prompted to go there after reading an article in Personal Computer World magazine (UK) where a guy built himself a dedicated desktop controller to play defender via mame.
and the rest is history....
built one mame tabletop
now currently restoring Centipede, Gorf Upright and Cabaret, Frogger and Galaxian
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Read the build your own cab article in Retro Gamer magazine (UK) and followed the useful links provided in that. A couple of months later my best friends Dez and Nadeen kindly bought me a copy of Saint's book for my birthday :) I've only built a controller (using Ultimarc parts) so far, but it's only a matter of time (and cash) before the insanity grabs me again and I have a go at building one of those neat looking 4foot mini-cabs that seem to be popular.
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i was told to visit these forums by Mark (Mr-Megalo) a long time ago. I lurked for a long while, then i signed up a while back but i never posted until now. How many posts do i need to start posting in the buy sell trade forum?
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i was told to visit these forums by Mark (Mr-Megalo) a long time ago. I lurked for a long while, then i signed up a while back but i never posted until now. How many posts do i need to start posting in the buy sell trade forum?
Last time I checked, it was 6.
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tried getting a old Atari 8 bit on internet. no good
Brother gave me a old 486. for internet.
I did not like it. hooked Atari to 486. heard about Atari emu. found mess...
link to Mame. links on every place pointed here.
never did emulate Atari 8bit PC
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I was looking for a way to play Bubble Bobble a few years back...and thus came across BYOAC during that search.
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why did he threated to shut this website down? ???
Mameroom.com. That's the site, though back when I found it that's not what it was called. It had a completely non-arcade-related name. I think it was cybertechdesign.com or something like that. Anyway, from what I remember there was a member of this board who had bought his arcade cabinet plans, but was then giving the plans away. It had nothing to do with Saint or the message board in general. Just a couple of guys he felt were interfering with his business and he wanted to stop them, collateral damage be damned. And I think he was nuts enough to believe that if this board shut down people would migrate to his message board as a replacement -- like they'd just forget what he had done or something. But it was just a goofy threat anyway. I don't think anybody took it seriously, as in nobody was actually worried that they guy could have shut down the board. I think people just felt betrayed by him since he had been a member of the community and these forums for a long time.
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Not entirely sure, but I think it was a link off of http://www.epanorama.net/index.php
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First game I ever ran was cadillacs and dinosaurs on callus emulator and I KNEW there had to be a way to build my own arcade control cuz keyboard just wasnt doing it for me so I searched aol for "arcade controls" and.... :o
Been here since the begining.
!
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google
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A friend of mine told me about this cool website that showed people hacking keyboards and Microsoft Sidewinders and hooking them up to arcade joysticks and buttons. Said that people were buying derelict arcade cabinets (or finding them for free) and putting it all together for MAME gaming magic!
So...I came to this website while on a break at work. My buddy and myself must have sent at least 100 emails that day, back and forth talking about our plans for making our own arcade goodness. One trashed arcade cabinet, two hacked Sidewinders, one shipment from Happs (back when they wouldn't sell to the public and we had to pick a fake corporate name to buy from them--heh--) and VIOLA!
Finding this site was a memorable day, to say the least!
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I remember it well, a long, long, long time ago. I was working on building my first arcade panel. I had been talking about it a little bit on the forums at daves classics (which was "The website" back then 98 or 99).
Saint had just started his website at that time and personally invited me to check it out. Ever since that point I've been hooked. It's been a fun ride so far and I'm glad that BYOAC has been there for the majority of that time.
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You know, I just can't remember. Must be all those drugs frm the 60's man! ;) (And yes, for our more gullible readers, that was I joke. I WAS only 2 when the 60's ended!)
I know it must have been shortly after I found the Commodore 64 emulation stuff though. Probably some related link from one of the C64 sites.
Makes you wonder how Saint found it though ;D (Which came first, BYOAC or Saint?)
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My girlfriend is an artist and she was thinking of making an arcade cabinet as an art piece - I saw the Project Arcade book in the bookstore and picked it up, thinking it'd probably be helpful. From there we decided to do a cabinet for gaming, because we both like arcades. The book, of course, led us to the website.
Teef: I can only imagine that doing all those drugs during your toddler years must have led to some serious memory loss...
(But your post makes me wonder about the potential in making a C-64-based arcade cabinet...)
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I was originally hardcore into Sparcade back in the day, and thought it was great. Unfortunately, there weren't 20 billion websites back then, so I didn't think anyone made arcade games from the emulator. Then, about 3-4 years ago, I thought about the games again when I missed a working Donkey Kong Jr. arcade on eBay for like $150. Then I did a Yahoo search and stumbled across Mame... then, of course, that lead me to here a couple of years ago....
I'm not a frequent poster, but I lurk all the time. Just learnin' and learnin'....
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what a such nice stories!
this should be a sticky so we all can tell each other a bed time story ;D
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I came from Taiwan.
I am writing my thesis about build arcade.
I frond BYOAC on book Project Arcade and followed the URL to here. ;D
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I came from Taiwan.
I am writing my thesis about build arcade.
I frond BYOAC on book Project Arcade and followed the URL to here. ;D
let me be the first to say... welcome to BOYAC!!!
oh and good luck on your thesis!
maybe you could post your thesis here when your done with it ;D
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I found MAME, and was very excited.
Don't remember if it was via google or a friend, it was maybe 4 years ago.
From browsing the links in mame.net wound up in BYOAC and stayed ever since.
After a year or so a.b.(after finding byoac and mame) I started reading these. It happened when an article in the main page transported me to this new universe.
More than a year ago I found a place here in Dallas, that had cabinets for sale. Bought a broken one, but since that progress has been painfully slow due to undecisiveness, overplanning, lack of knowledge / skills and budget.
Now I have told about mame and byoac to many many more and less enthusiastic people.
It would be nice to see forums by city to be able to meet people to easily get help on the spot and also easily buy/sell/swap parts.
Thanks Y'all
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I read about MAME years ago but wasn't very interested. BUT, I always wanted to own an arcade machine. So after I bought my first one (closer to now). I began searching for arcade resources at Barnes and Noble. There I found the Bible.
I started fixing up my Galaga cab and googled for monitor help.
(thanks guys)
And now we have pink T-Molding.
And MAME r00lz.
I started my first cab, Radicade and My girlfriend blames all of you!
w00t!
-=XD=-
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I picked up a working JAMMA cab (POW) at a yard sale. POW sucks, so I was going to put MAME in it, and I ended up here.
I never did MAME that cab, it has WWF Superstars in it now.
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I think I came here indirectly from reading the same slashdot article that jakobud posted. I had thought about arcade machines before, but it was that article on slashdot that got me actually ready to start a project machine. Once I started many internet searches led back to these forums and the BYOAC page in general. Kind of hard to miss. =)
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It was a pop-up at an adult site. I clicked it thinking I was gunna see boobs.
The same thing happened to me...
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RetroBlast!
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It was a long time ago, but I think it had something to do with the PowerRamp Mite gamepad I bought and it's dysfunctional "plus" control. While looking for others who may have been having the same problems via the AltaVista search engine (anyone use that anymore?) I saw reference to the control being stripped (or most likely it's bigger brother) for MAME use because it could send PS/2 Keyboard data.
After the discovery of MAME, I set to work converting the Defender cab in my basement from being Amiga based to PC based, and started to look for sources for controls to replace the beat up stuff that was in the machine. On a whim, I typed in "arcadecontrols.com" and was pretty amazed to find that others were doing the same thing. Read all the articles on the site and lurked the sometimes buggy forum for quite a while before actually jumping into the fray.
It's still kind of funny to go through the archives and see who was here back then, who is still around and how opinions can change over time.
RandyT
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Retroblast!
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I've always remembered my Atari 800 and Robotron. It had a neat plastic holder for two Joysticks. Since the plastic holder hold two Joysticks in place, I thought it would be really cool to hook the joystick of one to the fire button on the other. That way I could play "just like in the arcade" without having to hold the dinky Atari controller with one hand and press the fire button with my thumb. You remember those days.
Years(!) later I found MAME(TM) and started researching. Everything pointed to BYOAC. I spent too many months lurking before I signed up.
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It was a long time ago, but I think it had something to do with the PowerRamp Mite gamepad I bought and it's dysfunctional "plus" control.
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I was searching online for japanese clay pots, and was tricked into signing up onto this debacle of a forum.
OK, I'm joking. this is probobly the best run forum I've seen on the net.
I thought to myself. Hey, I remember back when I first used nesticle that was sweet. I wonder if they have something like that for arcade games. FOUND MAME. reasearched mame for a little while and found the project arcade book, and came here from the links in the book.
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It was a dark and stormy night, the type so stormy that you can taste the electricity sparking in the air. There was only one source of light in the small room, a window intermittently flashing, a window into the past. Sounds thundered to the flashes, filling the room with warnings of dread and death. A ball of lighting struck me, struck me dead in my unguarded chest. "AAARRRRGgghhh!!!"
My younger brother had just introduced me to mame32 (and his HotRodSE) by kicking my arse at Street Fighter II, just like he did in the in the arcades, with his dang ken/ryu fireballs. I looked around the room and noticed the sun had set while we were playing, and flipped on the lights. The banishing of darkness brought my eyes back to the hotrod, the personification of the arcade controller I always wished I could have for my home gaming, the thing I always "knew" as a kid that would turn my sega genesis, ninteno, and PC into the awesome "ARCADE MACHINE at HOME". (echo "ohm, ohm ohm...") ::)
"Lets try something else", the unvoiced 'please' obviously begging for my rescue from another beating. Other games from our childhood rolled across the screen. My brother must have been trying to get on my good side after kicking my behind, as the game were mostly from my favorite category: 2+ player Co-ops. Gauntlet, UN Squadron, Buster Brothers (Pang), Toobin, Ghouls'n Ghosts, and I was introduced to Magical Drop III.
It wasn't until later that night I noticed something was still missing from the arcades, even with the seemingly dream-come-true hotrod: Forgotten Worlds and Cabal played funny, Smash TV couldn't be played 2 player on the it, and Super Sprint or Spy Hunter on an 8-way joystick sucked. I needed a better controller than "just" the hotrod.
"What, you want to build your own or something?" my bro asked; I must have been thinking out loud.
"Sure, if there's nothing out there."
"Try starting at BYOAC."
"Okay."
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Ah, I remember it well...
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..... I had an old SNES arcade joy (it used real arcade buttons/joystick) that I wanted to connect to my dreamcast.
After some basic google searching trying to see if I could hack it to work w/my DC I stumbled THANKFULLY(!) onto BYOAC!
MameMaster!
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In early 2002 a friend of mine sent me an email which had the statement:
"Well, I have my old hand-held Coleco games again, I have my Atari 2600, my C64... now I've met a guy who rebuilds classic arcade games and replaces the internals with pc parts"
There were links to MAME, The Ultimate Arcade Machine and of course arcadecontrols.com. I downloaded MAME and found a Crazy Climber rom. I quickly decided I need real arcade controls. Soon I had a gutted Rampage cabinet and the orders to Ultimarc, Bob Roberts, Wells Gardner, Oscar, Newegg, and EBay began. It took about 4 months to get the cabinet playable and to the basement. I have never submitted a project announcement since the cabint never seems quite finished. Neither my friend nor the guy he works with who "rebuilds classic arcade games and replaces the internals with pc parts" have actually found time to build a MAME cabinet.
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refered here to purchase happ controls from ponyboy. :) now, im sticking around to hopefully find someone who will sell a 3rd strike board
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I found it through the example page in June of 2004. Friend of mine introduced me to Mame a month or two prior and we were sitting around work and I said it would be cool to build some kind of dedicated box to hold a computer and to play Mame. I had no idea what was out there and did a search and found some cabinets that people made. It blew me away and one of those had a link to BYOAC. Took me another 8 or 9 months to finally register here but have visited this site just about every day since June 2004 (If only to read the ramblings of Chad, Drew, Stingray, Smokes, Mr C, etc.)
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I was on Ebay looking for a Golden Tee machine. I saw this thing called,"Mame" that could play over 4000 games. After looking at the machines on ebay, I bought a disc from Spystyle like an idiot for about 5 or 6 bucks. It immediately directed me here and the rest is history. Now when I see something neat on Ebay, I google the idea first instead of being lazy.
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For me, I found this site fairly recently - maybe 3 months ago
I had played with Mame on my Mac Quadra 840av in the 90s - when it was in its infancy and thought it was the coolest thing ever...! But of course the keyboard interface always bugged me.
I recently saw the "Arcade Legends" machine on costco.com. I hit me that there has got to be a way to build something similar for a lot less money - so off to google I went. Eventually ended up here, and I have been obsessed with the idea of building my own arcade machine ever since.
Just bought a cabinet this past weekend and am just getting started on my project. Coming up with a nice fat list of all the stuff I am going to need to buy... Sticks and trackball from Ultimarc, controller from Groovy Game Gear, translucent buttons from Ponyboy, and the list goes on...!
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I heard about the Project Arcade book on Attack of the Show a few months back.
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Funny story. Last Christmas my parents bought my sons the Jakks handheld Pacman & MsPacman. The next day I took them to the in-laws house so we could all enjoy them. As usual my in-laws completely ignored me and the boys (because they are really self-absorbed so & so's) so I started playing Pacman. After an hour or so I logged on to the computer at their house (because they were still ignoring us) and did a Google search for Pacman patterns. I came across the MAMEWORLD Pacman page. I wasn't quite sure why they kept talking about MAME so I did a search on that. Somewhere along the lines I came across BYOAC. I was hooked instantly.
The funny thing is I was really pissed off at the way my in-laws treated me last Christmas, but if they hadn't treated me that way I might never have had the individual play time on the Jakks machines which led me to search for "a better way to play those games."
This Christmas I'll take my Mame equipped laptop to the in-laws and I'll enjoy ignoring them while I play my favorite games.
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Do you know which episode and segment? I'd like to try to track that down :)
I heard about the Project Arcade book on Attack of the Show a few months back. Eventually got the book a month or so ago. The book got me informed and motivated enough to start my own cabinet, which in turn led me here :)
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While on Amazon.com, I saw John St.Clair's book on Project Arcade. It tweaked my interest and I purchased it this summer.
I followed the links to this site and haven't looked back.
My CP is built and by winter's end I should have a full blown arcade in the basement to piss my spouse off with ;-)
It's great to play the classics and be able to show them to my children, who seem to enjoy them as much as I did (do).
Thanks to John St.Clair on the BYOAC community for introducing me to this great hobby and helpting me out with putting it all together. I had to sell my entire console game collection (Original Atari Pongs to Sega's Dreamcast) on ebay to fund it, but it certainly made selling the idea to my significant other that much easier.
Thanks again.
John
P.S. If you are new to this hobby, pickup John's book and bookmark this forum-You are going to need it (them).
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Do you know which episode and segment? I'd like to try to track that down :)
I heard about the Project Arcade book on Attack of the Show a few months back.
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I ran into MAME after looking for a NES emulator in 1998-1999 (I think?). I remember thinking "there's gotta be a way to hook up real controls to a computer." Did a search (probably on altavista at that point) and found arcadecontrols.speedhost.com. Posted on the old boards for a while (that old software sucked compared to this, but it worked at the time), then took a small hiatus. Came back and it had moved to arcadecontrols.com.
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I saw a guy at work playing metal slug on his pc and I thought he was playing it on a PS1. When I asked him he said it wasnt on a ps 1 but on an emulator. I asked him if he could show me and he said look it up on the web and when i started doing research I found this site! ;D
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I started out in NES emulation (Nesticle) in the mid-late 90's when a friend of mine showed me how he could play SMB on his computer. I then found out about MAME rummaging through some random ROM site looking for other emulators.
I got into cab building by being broke, believe it or not. I was in my first apartment after I got in the military and had no furniture, just a bed. I thought to myself, "How cool would it be to have a coffee table with an arcade built into it?!?".
The rest is history.
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I'd been using MAME since like 0.34 or something like that but had never considered a cabinet or real arcade controls. A couple of years ago a friend suggested that we build a cabinet around a dedicated MAME PC. We thought we were the first to think of it.
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I was looking for a copy of SNESKey in 1997 or 1998... whenever Callus/Nesticle/Genecyst were out. I wanted to interface my SNES and Genesis arcade sticks to my PC through the parallel port of my old P166MMX. Went looking on the web and found this site back when it was just a FAQ page- it had lots of good stuff on it, even back then! Been lurking ever since... getting all sorts of crazy ideas ;)
Since 1999 I've been wanting to build an arcade cabinet.
Since then, I've built countless PC/Console game adapters, a Dreamcast->PC Serial port adapter, a luggable joystick-box console (the portable Markade), and am in the process of Tastefully mameing a poorly converted Tron->Two Tigers cabinet.
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About mid 1999 I found MAME and started thinking that there has got to be a way to hook up actual arcade buttons to a keyboard instead of beating the living stuffings out of the space bar. (ooh run on sentance hell!!!). I Yahoo'd something like arcade buttons and found this site. I look back in amazement that I didn't loose my job due to the major drop in productivity. I love this site. My wife however...
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I discovered MAME(tm) about 3 years ago and enjoyed playing a few choice classics using my keyboard. Little did I know that, a) literally thousands of games are out there, b) real honest-to-goodness arcade controls are able to be purchased and interfaced with my computer, and c) I could actually have an arcade machine of my very own!!! This site was easy to find by googling "home arcade controls" or something like that, way back when I was just a pup in this hobby. And I am still very much a pup, judging by how hardcore some of this community is. :) Thanks to all who keep this site alive, it is really special.
Eric.
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I read some story about emulation (for a Nintendo or some other such console) and figured there'd be a way to play a game or two that were in the arcades (HAH!) and was introduced to MAME. After playing several brazilian games with my keyboard, I was looking for more, and figured just like with consoles, they made some "realistic" controller for these things. I think MAME was in the high 50's or low 60's at that time. Did a little search, found this here site, and....did nothing with the info. Moved back to WI, decided to see what was out there since I had nothing to do at the time, downloaded several zip files worth of old forum posts. Read. Read. Read some more, then started at the last page of the newest iteration and worked my way forward to page 1.
Figured out how to answer for myself some questions I had about my Time Pilot, and started building a craplet that works for MAME. It worked so well, I pulled all the parts off of it and scrapped it until I could commit a decent effort from myself to it. Somewhere along the line I figured out that Everything Else was for....just that.....and I've been slowly drawn down into the ooze that comprises it.
Lastly, I hope someday to be buried in BrokenBones' CP ;D
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??? From memory stumbled across the old 'ArcadeOS' site... this snowballed into ideas of chucking a Celeron 300 into an old 'WrestleFest' cab...... natural selection and 'HotBot' pointed me towards here.....
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I was looking for walkthroughs on how to hack two dreamcast guns together for playing House of the Dead 2.
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I ran across this thread while searching.
Now I am itching to hear more stories.
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Well,
Shortly after discovering mame a several years back, I found the website for the Trashcade. Then I did a google search for, building your own arcade, and guess what? I found this site... Who'd of thought it? :•)
Just as it is,
Flip Willie
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The year was 2005. I thought I was being totally original when I decided to build an arcade. I found this site and learned otherwise.
I'm a total poser.
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I think I found it on the awesomely good Massive Mame Project site. It's awesomeness was only dwarfed by the awesomeness+1 of this site.
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The year was 2005. I thought I was being totally original when I decided to build an arcade. I found this site and learned otherwise.
I'm a total poser.
ha ha... HE's a poser. He made something that a lot of other people already did...
Awww man, I did too. ;)
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I think I found it on the awesomely good Massive Mame Project site. It's awesomeness was only dwarfed by the awesomeness+1 of this site.
You wouldn't happen to have a LINK to such an awesome site, would you? ;)
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I was visiting a friends house and was completely blown away by a full sized arcade cabinet just sitting in his living room. Then, just to up the ante, he showed me it could play TONS of games!
After spenging entirely to much time playing golden tee and metal slug, I helped him wire a couple of new joysticks and decided right then and there I had to do it for myself.
He referred me to this website, where I discovered Saint had written a book!! Now that the book is completely dog-eared, written in, and full of post-it notes, I am embarking on my own build.
God bless the internet.
spiffykyle
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I stumbled upon this place and it was right when 'woodworking' was new. Yea, only a few months ago. Anyway, I thought this place was kind of a dump and how everybody on here was pretty retarded and stuff. Figured I just needed a quick couple answers from 'woodworking' and I would build my stuff and get the f-outta here. For Good! Yea. For good. I haven't left once since about my 3rd day and now I kinda just run around here constantly spinning my wheels and generally wasting bandwidth.
Just kidding guys. This place is the cats ass and don't you forget it.
To everybody involved in the upkeep and what-not: :cheers:
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I had just finished the last page of my book, "Project Arcade, Build Your VERY Own Arcade Machine". I went to setup a web site so people could trade information and recommend my book to each other. :)
I decided on arcadecontrols.com. I found that the domain was taken so I typed the URL into my browser and DOH!!!!!!! Years of writing my epic novel down the drain!!!!!
CURSE YOU SAINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, actually, my wife bought me and the kids a JAKK's game for Christmas one year. I got re-addicted to Galaga. Already knew about MAME from its early days. Decided I was going to build a cabinet. Started looking for parts and found ArcadeControls.com
Now all I get for Christmas is clothes.
CURSE YOU SAINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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For me, I found this site fairly recently - maybe 3 months ago
I had played with Mame on my Mac Quadra 840av in the 90s - when it was in its infancy and thought it was the coolest thing ever...! But of course the keyboard interface always bugged me.
I recently saw the "Arcade Legends" machine on costco.com. I hit me that there has got to be a way to build something similar for a lot less money - so off to google I went. Eventually ended up here, and I have been obsessed with the idea of building my own arcade machine ever since.
I started playing MacMAME on my Mac Quadra 840av back around 96, downloading simple roms via AOL and a 28.8 connection from JoseQ's Emuviews or later, MAME.dk. I remember how amazingly choppy most fighter games were. But Galaga and other classics of its day played great. It was so sweet. Especially loved all the Japanese stuff since I was living there in the late 80s, and MAME was the way I could relive nostalgia from my youth from both sides of the Pacific.
I've played MAME off and on since then, my interest in the hobby waxing and waning with the times. MacMAME has always in my apps folder of each subsequent Mac desktop and laptop I've owned--to be something to pass the time here and there. Always wanted a real cab so I've been frequenting sites like these for a lot of years--thinking of the day I'd have the guts to take the plunge and build one.
Finally saw the Arcade Legends cabs in Cost-Co this holiday season and thought: that cab blows. I could build something better myself for cheaper or pay someone else to build it for not much more and have it exactly how I liked. So I bought a cab for Christmas. In the process of setting up the computer it's got me back to sites like this and BYOAC. Finally my lingering fascination with MAME has been reignited in to a full on love-fest.
I had the cab for a week and already started to plan what my next mod for it is gonna be. I've slipped down the slippery slope I fear.
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I bought a pinball machine from a guy who had a huge collection. He also had a Mame Machine. I had know about MAME for a long time, and had played it in the early 00s. Anyway...my pinball machine reading lead me to Retroblast. What a great site! I check visit there daily. So that lead me to BYOC. Now I visit here almost daily!
RubberP
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I was finally gonna do a MAME cab and just used the google. 8)
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I pm'ed a guy over on slickdeals who I found out was local to me. Thru emails, found out I knew him. He pointed me to his website, which he detailed his MAME cabinet. He then pointed me to here.
Just a note, my wife damns you for all eternity Jimmy. :laugh2: :laugh2:
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.. A link from the old arcade@home FE site