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How Did Everyone Get Into This Hobby... and Get it Past Your Wives? haha
RoninEditor:
I'm just curious how we all got to this point, wanting to relive our childhoods enough to invest hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours on building our own arcade cabinet.
My father's memories were tuned into the sounds of his Dean Martin style music while working on cars in his garage as a kid. To me? I can hear a sound from a certain game and instant memories flashback to me, like the days at the batting cages with the bass echoing from a Galaga ship exploding in the arcade, awaiting our chance to get on, lining up our quarters, the pile I would hold in my batting helmet afterwards. I used to be a video game nut, had all the mini arcade games like Galaxian, Q-Bert, the yellow circular Pac-Man game (which I still have!), and Tron... I made 'arcades' in front of my house and charged the neighbor kids to play my games, lol. I even remember at my father's grocery store the first game we got to have in-house from the local game leasing guy - the Pacman ripoff "Piranha." (I just played the ROM and my god, the memories came flooding back." And then we got Galaxian... eventually I convinced my parents to turn a wing of the store into an arcade, which they did and I grew up playing Tron.
Tron is how I got here. I always wanted to go back to those days of playing Tron but didn't know how to find it for my computer. I'm a television editor and for a stint, I freelanced at G4 where video game experts were running around. I told someone there about my search for Tron and in turn, he turned me onto the whole Mame 'thing' (they have it to record arcade games for segments).
While at G4, ironically, we also did a paid commercial by the publisher of Saint's legendary book, "Project Arcade," which I edited (the spot, not the book, haha). They had the book floating around and I was hooked! Of course, someone else took the free copy!! But buying it was money well-spent.
That was, geez, three years ago... is that right? What's been the hold-up? As most of you all are probably experiencing - THE WIFE. Every guy I know is gung ho about the idea of building a cab, women roll their eyes and laugh about it, and stop laughing when you tell them how much it costs. But finally, I got off the sidelines and ordered my parts... shockingly, she didn't protest too much because, after three years, she realizes it's not just a fad or something I'm half-a$$ing.
Anyway... that's my story, I was just really curious how we all got to this point! (My wife doesn't believe there's a whole community of us helping each other out, lol.)
paigeoliver:
The best way to slip it past the wife is NOT to scratchbuild. Convert an existing cabinet. Converting an existing cabinet can be done in a matter of hours.
waveryder:
When I was a younger lad...In the dark ages. I got hooked on Bubble Booble and I swore i'd have it at home one day...thank god for mame right. First came a control panel, that was built the day CPS2 encryption was "Xored" by razoola. Not being a true enough experience the first cab quickly followed and now I've just finished the second. The wife was pretty understanding about the first one as we used to play SFA together all the time. Now years later were stuck with jobs, kids a mortgage and all that stuff that interferes with gaming. She played less and became more frustrated at my hobby. Luckily there is a secret weapon on the board to get the wives interested........"The Touchscreen Jukebox" offer to build here one of these or add it to your cab and she'll never complain again. I can usually get a couple of games in on my cab before she wants to listen to the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack. Small price to pay to keep the better half sweet :angel:
ex_directory:
LOL! I completed Bubble Bobble after probably about 400 hours of playing it in the arcades (were talking 1990 here), it was one of only two arcade machines we had at sixth form college, me and another guy (who I never spoke to once) used to go on together and reguarly hit 70/80 levels on 10p each. After a while we once got to 100th level and then one day we completed it. Shortly after that they changed the game because it was not making any money!!
Wife one was not too bad for me, I involved her at every stage of the planning process, got her opinion on everything. Small tip though, don't be finishing the final wiring on Christmas eve trying to get it ready for Christmas day, she ended up doing all the wrapping and then for some reason completely flipped out at me for not helping - go figure!
Oh, and if you have it in the kitchen, it's a party killer, all the lads just stand around playing it, caused used a couple of arguments, mine almost had to go... but then I installed some jukebox software (VMJ), suddenly you find all the girls taking it in turns to add tracks to play and then of course it is very accessible when you do want to play the odd game!
Ex
TheShanMan:
My old neighbor had 2 cabs about 9 years ago, and wanted to get rid of one (a centipede that wasn't working). He gave it to me for free and introduced me to mame, and there you go! My wife does balk a bit about spending on this and that for it, but for the most part she is happy about it because my kids (6 and 4) love playing it and sometimes we play as a family.
Now getting her to go for a second cab is going to be the interesting part!
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