Are there any arcade retail outlets?

[The cranky hermit]

I'm ready to buy some equipment, mainly joysticks and pushbuttons, but I'm not very eager to give out my credit card number online. It's been stolen once, and it was really annoying to cancel everything and get a new one. Is there such a thing as an arcade shop, or perhaps hardware stores that would carry Happ equipment?

If not, are there any ways to order this stuff online without using a credit card?

[Birdtales]

Order from http://www.therealbobroberts.com he takes money orders and checks.

[TheTick]

Get a line of credit and use a purchase order

[rampy]

the bob roberts suggestion is a good one...

Also your credit card, if it's worth it's salt should have some sort of "online shopping generate a disposable credit card number with a set cieling amount usable only by  a specific vendor"  ... well at least my bank does...  I generate all sorts of "mini" one-off cards for my online purchases via a neat little interface ... they show up on the master bill with a little pound sign adjacent to it to let me know it was a "shopsafe" purchase (MBNA).

*shrug*

rampy

[paigeoliver]

If you live in ANY major city, then there will be someone who stocks game parts. Start calling places in the phonebook under amusement and vending.

Figure double happs prices though.

[The cranky hermit]

Thanks. I visit Boston, MA often, and there are a few entries in the Boston yellow pages under Amusement. The most promising looking is "New England Coin Op Distributor."

I'll give them a call in the moring. Double Happ's prices sounds bad, though, considering Happ is pretty expensive to begin with.

[1UP]

I doubt Happ or any reputable company would allow your credit card info to be misused.  Looks like you just gave your info to the wrong person...

[The cranky hermit]

I suspect a hacker more than I suspect a corrupt dealer. I never gave out my credit card number to any unreputable company online. In fact, I think it was a purchase I made on amazon.com that gave my number away.

[1UP]

I've heard that Internet Explorer has serious flaws in security, Mozilla is supposed to be better according to my sys admin at work...

[spectre]

microsoft sucks, and yes there is a security flaw... lately there has been a security violation update in ie every couple weeks...

[paigeoliver]

I suspect a hacker more than I suspect a corrupt dealer. I never gave out my credit card number to any unreputable company online. In fact, I think it was a purchase I made on amazon.com that gave my number away.

In reality your credit card number is much more likely to be taken an abused during a real world transaction. Every time you use that card you are handing out the number to the person behind the counter and to every person that works there, and in many cases every person who will ever work there.

Often times those clerks can even look up old transactions. At my place I can look up the credit card number of anyone who EVER did business here. Basically anyone who wants to can get access to thousands of credit card numbers. Why people try to hack them off computers is a mystery to me, when they could just go get a job at motel 6 for a week and copy a backup disc and take home 1000 numbers all at once.

It all basically boils down to this. Any business is susceptible because the front line "just over minimum wage" employees have access to the numbers.  That means that YOU are susceptible if you ever use a credit card anywhere.

Retail establishments usually are not that bad because the clerks are already being watched carefully for theft, and they often can't look up old transactions.

But anyplace that can take numbers over the phone.  and anyplace that only runs a couple of employees at once are bad for this. Hotels are probably the worst. They are often lightly staffed in the evenings (often just one person). They usually have huge guest reservation database systems which allow the worker to look up pretty much anyones number who has ever stayed there, including cancelled reservations.

Gas stations are bad because they usually just have one person working, who can print up duplicate receipts and pocket them all day long.

Restaurants are bad because the servers can go back and stick in whatever tip they want (assuming you didn't write anything on the tip line, and even then they can often still do it). Then when the bill comes most people have long forgotten the exact total, and even if you don't forget, and you pursue it, it only gets blaimed on a typo (assuming the server still works there at all).

Those are all just a few of the reasons I don't use credit cards and I don't have a bank account.

[The cranky hermit]

microsoft sucks, and yes there is a security flaw... lately there has been a security violation update in ie every couple weeks...

I wouldn't go as far as to say that Microsoft sucks, but it is true that their security leaves much to be desired. This is why I use a Linux box as a dedicated firewall for my Windows machine.

Paigeoliver, where do you get your arcade controls? And how do you cash your paychecks?

[paigeoliver]

My controls are mostly leftovers from parted out machines, and stuff I picked up locally from other gameheads. I did buy a couple of Ms. Pac sticks from bob roberts once though. I used to do ebay from time to time, too, but only with money orders. I just cash my paycheck at the bank it came from.

I have a lot of spare sticks and buttons left over from a couple machines I parted and from a few PCBs that came with control panels that I bought on ebay a few years ago. I don't buy new controls, except for those Ms. Pac sticks (and a couple crap I mean happ sticks I bought from a local distributor when I first got into games).

The reason I don't buy new controls is that, come on. For the price of a couple joysticks and buttons from happs I can pick up an entire dead game (often complete, and often having the higher quality leaf controls), so buying new controls just seems like a big waste of money to me (as does building cabinets, costs more to build a cabinet than it does to buy a fully working one).