Take a look at my arcade! (lots of pics)

Wait...you have Dragon's Lair? I'm driving up.

 

In real life, I'm Dot Mongur, champion of the I.P.F. (International Pacman Federation). I don't play the game, I operate it! This is full-contact Jr. Pacman, you better be ready to rumble if you step in my lair. My best score is 589K. That puts me in the top ten in the world. I keep getting better but I doubt I'll ever make it to #1.

 

It's a lot more expensive than I initially thought it would be.

Here's the website for the cabinet along with any measurement info you're looking for.

recroommasters.com

Cabinet ; $900
Control board : $350
Arcade art printing and installation ; $100
Samsung 32" LCD TV : $300
PC : $1500
Speakers : $100 for the Kickers and the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 sub/amp + control pod/preamp $120
Custom tempered glass : $135
Arcade door : $40
HyperSpin hard drive : $350

So almost $3900. Now, you can skimp on a few things if you don't care about modern games by getting a mere $500 PC which can run MAME and other platforms. So that's 1K saved right there. The glass is optional and only was installed to make the picture look nicer than with the plexiglass sheet that was included. Cabinet art isn't needed so that's another $100 saved. Instead of getting as close to a lag-free TV as possible, you can just get whatever 32" is lying around or is cheapest. Amazon sells some for less than $150 so another $150 saved. Speakers aren't necessary as you could use whatever the TV comes with. Another $220 saved. The arcade door is purely cosmetic, so another $40 saved.

Using the cheaper figures I've illustrated, you could get away with doing it for $1900, perhaps even less. You could buy a cheaper control board if you wanted to save even more but the end result wouldn't be as fun, IMHO. The X-Arcade is an option at $200 so another $150 saved. If you want to go even cheaper and are handy, you can look on CraigsList for arcade cabinets. Some can be had for quite cheap but you'll need to put quite some work to make them look good and operate well... but you'd save a lot. You can also just download HyperSpin for free and go at it from scratch if you have the time (months!), coding knowledge, and willingness to go at it. Personally, I don't think it's worth it but that's another way to save $350.

My philosophy is always doing things right and going full throttle. I don't go halfway into anything. But I know that people's financial realities need to be taken into consideration. I wouldn't be able to do this again so I'm glad it's done and knowing myself, I'd rather go without than doing things halfway, but that's me.

Honestly, the biggest amount of trouble and time and effort I put into this has been in calibrating and troubleshooting things. I can't stress enough how huge a PITA HyperSpin is. It's sexy but high-maintenance and has what seems like an unlimited amount of ways for things to go wrong which require many more hours of research, tweaking, experimenting until things do work fine. Below is a rather vanilla example of how HyperSpin can look. Yes, this is a video of the game playing as you stop your selection wheel on it. Pretty awesome.



Fortunately, there are other interfaces which group together platforms (or consoles) but the don't look half as sexy as this. Maximus Arcade is another. Also free.



From what I've read, MA is far less troublesome but of course, being how I am, I wouldn't be happy with a MA setup so HS is what I opted to use. I've paid dearly for it with my time but it's pretty cool as there are tons of animations, sound effects, videos, and wheels. It's quite flexible. The possibilities are almost limitless. There's even a msg board like this one dedicated entirely to HS. It's quite popular.

Another option is you could get yourself a very cheap JAMMA board (again, if you're handy). These are very cheap and usually come preloaded with lots of classic games of yore for next to nothing. Of course, the library of games is limited but if these are only what you're interested in, you could theoretically get a JAMMA arcade cab that you'd restore yourself for less than $800. So it can be done depending on how much you want to compromise, how handy you are, how much time you have, and whether you'd be happy with the end result.

Here's an example of a JAMMA board. This one is $50.

Amazon.com: [Sintron] Classical Arcade Video Game 60 in 1 Pcb Jamma Board Cga/vga Output: Toys & Games



Hope that answers your question. Let me know if you have any others.

 

Wow! Just wow.

I need my stuff back.

 

That's funny you and I were PM back and forth about music and I had no idea you were into games. I have been in the industry since 1981 and sold all those games when they were new. Saw the huge video game boom...and bust....then boom again when the Street Fighter series came out and saved our industry for a time...and then bust again, never to recover. What segment am I in now? I sell multi games like you have, and ship them all over the US! Pinballs too, though multi games as of last year now outsell pins. People our age can now afford this sort of thing and want them for nostalgia. Hope you enjoy it....the bang for your buck is amazing with those!

 

Nothing beats pinball! Sure wish I had the funds and room to store them.

 

Anyone wanting to spend less just PM me and I will forward you info. Great info to start with though! We used to sell systems with the Rec Room Masters cabinets but found most wanted the same exact cabinet real games used so we have a builder who makes our cabnits and they look identical. Also, the rec room model is a build it yourself cabinet, think Ikea, where ours is all built and much better quality. All of these products have a place however! For the do it yourselfer and techsavie person, Strat-Mangler's info is wonderful! It's a fun hobby and sometimes it's more fun to go that route and build your own.

 

And as a sidenote, Rec Room is now selling a pinball cabinet where you can put multiple pins in a system, much like the video game system you have. We are working on a pre-built ready to go system. However, I'm not convinced people will go for a virtual pinball. If you want a few pinballs and don't have the space or finances, you sure can't beat getting hundreds of pinballs in one cabinet! Space is definitely an issue for many. Have fun with your video games!

 

The Don Bluth games were by far the best. He was an animator for Disney and he broke away to do independent animation. Cinematronics had a couple hits (Star Castle for one) and had some money to try and do something revolutionary. They developed Dragon's Layer. The first laserdisc game! My gosh...those came out and would make $1500 per week in quarters at fifty cents a game. That was unheard of. If you had an Asteroids in a busy place you could maybe make $400. So, guys could buy a Dragon's Layer and get their money back in just a few weeks. Except for one huge fatal flaw, which quickly destroyed the laserdisc game genre. Those Pioneer laserdisc players were not intended to be placed inside an enclosed cabinet with a hot crt monitor, to be run constantly as a video game machine. They were supposed to play a movie on ocassion. So, if you remember seeing them out of order all the time, that was why. In the mean time, Midway and all the other coin op companies jumped on the bandwagon trying to copy the success of Cinematronics. You wouldn't believe the cheesy graphics these guys were churning out, trying to get these games out to the street in ridiculous quick turnround times. The animation was garbage, the "games" were worse. Cinematronics had a minor hit with the next Don Bluth game, Space Ace, my favorite of the laser series. They also spent money to do Dragon's Layer II, but by then operators wouldn't go near a laserdisc game because of all the problems, so Dragon II didn't sell. Cinematronics filed for bankruptcy and that was the end of a very short era. Bally even had the gall to put out one using those CED players, which if you remember, used the same technology as vinyl records. So, the picture would jump around as the needle skipped. And clearly that technology was not intended to be played repeatedly, which Bally must have known. What a farce! A lot of operators lost a lot of money on that one. Anyway, nice that those 13 or so games can be seen on a couple of the multi game systems, including ours.

 

Arcades rule! I wish I had a Tron machine. I used to love it.

 

There are a few on eBay between 1K-3K. Arcades cost a ton.

 

A little too rich for my blood, but I love them.

 

If you're looking for games, one of the best places to look is Chattanooga Pinball. They have a Facebook page.

 

I can take down Phoebe left-handed. I wouldn't waste my good right hand on her!

 

I didn't know when Dragon's Lair came out that it ran on an LD player, a technology I had my eye on. All I knew was that it was out-of-order about half the time. By the time I found out there was an LD player in the cabinet, we were disposing of the game and I had my first LD player. I tried to get the Dragon's Lair disc but the majority owner wouldn't allow it. I don't know what he did with it. I sold my stake in the store in the late 80's, which seemed to be good timing as things worked out.

 

The original Dragon's Lair LD used to be very much a collector's item - I remember seeing a couple of copies pop up on Usenet back in the day. There was actually a limited-edition repressing of it around 2002 - only 400 copies were pressed, and they were snapped up eagerly by both laserdisc collectors and arcade collectors.

 

I always loved Missile Command and Tempest the best. Liked the Track & Field game too. Liked the original Atari Football, Baseball and Basketball arcade games. There was also a gunfighting arcade game I loved to play in the early '80s. Can't remember the name. Gunfight at the OK Corral, maybe? Hogan's Alley was another game I loved.

My friend, who is an anesthesiologist, still has his original Asteroid arcade game and Pacman arcade game that his father bought him back in high school when they were available for direct purchase. He still has an old Pinball game too. He has since added a few other arcade games and one of those old bowling arcade games with a real minature ball, lane and pins that you used to see in bars and bowling alleys. Those old bowling arcade games breakdown a lot and he has had to have technicians come to work on it (not many certified technicians remain that can fix those since they are old.)

 

That's an awesome gaming system! I know a guy who built something very similar, and man does it take me back to the golden age of console games. Games like Space Invaders came out in my pre-teens and the next several years were some amazing times in the evolution of video arcade games. My all time favorite was "BattleZone"; I was addicted to it big time.

Was very cool to see games go from simple black and white vector graphics (ie. Asteroids, Lunar Lander) to the colorful side scrollers (ie. Defender), the 2.5D games (ie. Zaxxon), and beyond. A magical and exciting time, where there were new innovations in technology and game genres constantly being released.

 

I vaguely remember seeing Dragon's Lair discs on e-Bay....probably before 2002. I certainly didn't want one for any price over $5! That seems amazing to me that it was pressed again. It must of been pressed in Japan...? I don't think any LD's were pressed in the U.S. after the fall of '99.

 

Emulators are so much better than the real thing, though. You can upscale them, use filters, and make them look so much better than they ever have.

If a real cartridge or board dies or becomes defective, that costs real money to get back into business but with emulators, the worst that can happen is that a file gets corrupted and can easily and freely be replaced.

Of course, the emulators and HyperSpin in particular tend to be much more complex and high-maintenance if/when an issue presents itself but luckily, there are many ways of getting assistance by researching and asking others for help.

Playing better-looking versions of games I love is even more fun than playing the real thing, IMHO. Along with anti-aliasing which blends pixels together to make things look more natural and less of a staircase effect on lines which aren't perfectly horizontally or vertically straight, I can run some of them at much higher resolutions.

For instance, I can run Paper Mario 64 for instance with all sorts of filters to make things look nicer. On top is the standard N64 picture while on the bottom is an emulator running improved textures, filters, and a higher internal resolution for everything. The difference is striking.

 

According to LDDB, it was pressed at Imation in Wisconsin. There's also a mention there of Imation pressing discs for Disney until 2002:

LaserDisc Database - Dragon's Lair [---]

 

I never knew LD's were ever pressed in Wisconsin. I don't know where 3-M made discs, back when they did. Besides Sony in Indiana, I thought most discs were made in Japan and California.

 

Cool. Street Fighter and Dragon's Lair to boot.

 

Every single game, really. I have a complete collection, so every game you can think of, I have. Fun to get people to throw their own game ideas out only for me to launch them to play.