Space Invaders Cabinet Questions/Ideas

[wmba]

Greetings all.

I have a Space Invaders cabinet that I have been trying to get working for a number of months now.   At this point, I think I have everything except for a working boardset.   In a very amature/new to this hobby manuver, it seems that I have fried two working boardsets by hooking up the edge connector wrong (it will go on in two directions.. and the guy I got the cabinet  from showed me the wrong direction!).  So needless to say, I am a little burned out on things at the moment (pun intended!).   

Now, given the economy, and the fact that my wife and I had our first baby recently, my budget for buying another set of working boards is little to none at the moment (I have too many projects going on and can't fund them all at once... I am sure many of you can relate!).   So for the time being, I am considering running MAME in the cabinet until sometime in the future when I can properly finish the cabinet with all original parts.

Ok.. before you all start yelling, please understand that I will do NOTHING that will modify or damage the originality of this cabinet. All I want to do is figure out a way to attach a computer monitor to the existing monitor mounts and have it reflect off of the mirror that is in the cabinet, and then put a PC in the bottom of the cabinet. I will remove the control panel harness and put it aside for later, and just make a new harness and use an iPac.    So this mame conversion will be temporary, and I fully intend to do a proper restoration down the road.

So, has anyone done this before, where they are running MAME but still projecting it on the standard mirror in the Space Invaders cabinet?  Does it work well?

I welcome any thoughts comments, and please remember, this MAME setup is only temporary, and I will be making NO modifications to the cabinet that can't be undone later.

Thanks!
Bill

[Level42]

I'd throw in a 48in1. Has Space Invaders and saves setting up a PC etc.

[Q*Bert_OP]

Don't you need to change the monitor? IIRC, Multigame boards don't work with B/W monitors!

[wmba]

The Multiboards are cool, but it would cost me the same $$ to buy one of those as it would to buy a working Space Invaders board.  And then I would need to eliminate the whole mirror reflection system in the cabinet.  I want to retain that, which means the monitor is mounted in the bottom of the cabinet, facing up and backwards, and then reflected off a mirror (meaning the game is actually backwards on the monitor until reflected off the mirror.    So a multiboard would actually mean more work and cost.

I already have an old computer that will run Space Invaders, and MAME will let you flip the image, so the mirror can still be used.

[Level42]

Ah, yeah, hadn't thought about the mirror

[RayB]

Not what you want to hear but, to me all that work sounds more "expensive" time and effort wise (as well as "damage" to the machine) than it would be to get another board set. Have you asked around here? Sometimes people sell stuff for pretty fair prices rather than "Ebay market value".

[wmba]

I haven't asked here lately. The second board that I blew up was from someone on here. I just figured that I won't find another good deal.  Anyone have a working set that they want to sell cheaply??  (fingers crossed...)

[Q*Bert_OP]

I have a SI boardset. It was in a pile of non-working boards I bought, so I'd expect if not to work. I haven't tested it, because I don't have a B/W monitor...PM me if you're interested...

[Level42]

Check this out:

http://forums.webmagic.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=2&Number=809488&an=0&page=1#Post809488

Mark Spaeth is having trouble selling his working SI sets obviously. He charges very fair prices... Maybe you can even trade in your bad one's.