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Kind of Overwhelmed and Unsure of Where to Begin an Arcade Project
methodical:
In the Free Items thread (Buy/sell/trade section)
"Gutted Donkey Kong Jr Cab, has monitor brackets, speaker, coin door, marquee fixture, cp clamps, casters. Needs major cosmetic work Pickup in Jackson NJ."
Not exactly North Jersey but still free.
Cenobyte:
--- Quote from: awesomesauce22 on March 27, 2011, 12:17:40 pm ---OK,
3. I have a friend who will probably be able to give me a PC with (not 100% positive about specs) a 20GB Hard Drive and 512 MB RAM that's currently running Windows XP.
--- End quote ---
Be aware that a machine with lighter capabilities like an early XP machine (which I presume you have, looking at your hard drive specs) will only allow you to run the older games, say pre-1990's. Anything newer will probably not run (smoothly) on your pc, I guess. You can make a division at around 1993, when the 3D games arrived: your pc will run these at a playable fashion.
leapinlew:
The 3,000 games all require different controls. 4 way joysticks, 8 way joysticks, trackballs, spinners, steering wheels, pedals, yokes, top fire joysticks, etc. Not only that but the monitor orientation changes per game also. You probably won't be happy with 1 machine that can play them all and your budget for sure will limit you. You need to think about what games you really want to play on this machine and build a machine that can play those games well.
You can find many discussions on this forum regarding all-in-one style control panels. They are called Frankenpanels - do a search and do lots of reading.
Brian B:
Savannah, I have a tempest cab I'm looking to unload! (in L.A.) The ad is in the FS/FT area.
B.
--- Quote from: SavannahLion on March 27, 2011, 03:11:31 pm ---Keep searching Craigslist. I picked up a few cabs, some for free, and I'm still kicking myself for skipping that Tempest. The key here is patience. That crappy gutted Metallica cab was listed six times already between $50 TO $75. You couldn't pay me to take it. There was nothing for six months when I started searching then BOOM got a cab. Six months later got another two and missed the Tempest.
Decide what you want in a cab. Pick only one or two such as a big monitor and two players. Then look for a cab that can take that kind of hardware. Since you're starting out, your first cab will dictate the hardware not the other way around.
Be open to the cab. My very first cab is a Hang-On which is virtually pointless to convert. But I got a crazy amount of goodies with it. Quite a bit of it having nothing to do with the cab. Most of that stuff could be sold. Funding the project or put towards a better cab.
--- End quote ---
Donkbaca:
+1 on the x-arcade advice.
Its easy, relatively cheap, well built. From my experience, the ages 19-29 are pretty transient years, I don't know if you want to put all that work into a MAME cab and then have it be a liability to haul around later. I say build a bar top, or just get an x-arcade and find an old laptop with some sort of video out and there you have it, a somewhat portable arcade machine that you can hook up to a TV. If you ever decided that the hobby isn't for you, you can sell the x-arcade for just about what you paid for it, if you decide that you really want to build a cab at some future date, you can cannibalize the joysticks, buttons and encoder.
That's pretty much what I did, had an x-arcade in my 20's, saw it laying in my garage last summer and finally figured it was time to build a cab. Between the ages of 18 and 29 I probably lived in 2 dozen places. Moving is a pain, and having to haul an arcade cabinet from place to place is only asking for disaster.
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