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That's what I'm talking about. Just texted the wife about putting some arcade game in the basement for the kids, but really its for me.
Bulding an old school arcade machine
- Thread starter Steve-French
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That's what I'm talking about. Just texted the wife about putting some arcade game in the basement for the kids, but really its for me.
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oddly enough, you can now do this pretty easily on the Xbone, with the Nesbox emulator site ran on Edge (doesn't require Unlocking Dev mode or using Kodi or anything 'more complicated'). You store the Roms in your OneDrive account (free w/ Microsoft account), and then load them from there right in the browser. It's shockingly easy
the saving feature is a tad janky (if you don't close out the browser, clear cache and cookies, its a good chance it will only keep the first save state), but other than that its awesome
the saving feature is a tad janky (if you don't close out the browser, clear cache and cookies, its a good chance it will only keep the first save state), but other than that its awesome
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Just have your friend build it man. The retropie, emulator stuff is super easy. All you need for that is the raspberry pi, the rest is free.
The real art comes in the casing. The time and skill he puts into the paint jobs and any custom wood cutting(unless he is using precut builds), is where the hard part is. If the money isnt a big deal, help a friend out, let him do the hard part and you just get to enjoy a sweet arcade! Win win.
The real art comes in the casing. The time and skill he puts into the paint jobs and any custom wood cutting(unless he is using precut builds), is where the hard part is. If the money isnt a big deal, help a friend out, let him do the hard part and you just get to enjoy a sweet arcade! Win win.
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The hardest part would be making the cabinet which you can purchase a blue print for online. There is no sodering or anything involved as the wiring for the buttons snaps together. You can even buy the cabinets for around 100 and put it together yourself. Really if you wanted to get started all you would need.
$67
https://www.etsy.com/listing/619523...MIyMbI_eu13AIV0oh-Ch0Piw7qEAkYAyABEgLc8PD_BwE
Two sets of buttons $32
https://www.ebay.com/i/372038613422?chn=ps
Raspberry pie computer $35
View attachment 410785
https://express.google.com/product/...campaign=gsx&dclid=CNOTkqnttdwCFQg7TwodSUoFRg
LED monitor you can usually find these at goodwill or other thrift store for like $20 or for even a couple dollars online.
$3
vga to hdmi adapter $8
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_3?url=search-alias=electronics&field-keywords=vga+to+hdmi&sprefix=vga,electronics,203&crid=27W9UZ9G40ZHY
Plexiglass $20 Not necessary, but ads a nice touch
power strip with long cord or power source if you want to have a on off switch. Power strip is good enough though $16
Top light (also optional) $16
Some old computer speakers for sound you can also find these online or at a thrift store for around $10. Or just ask around people usually have an old set of these lying around.
Oil based latex primer and paint. $20
View attachment 410789
Harware such as hinge for the back panel, monitor mounts, and screws and such $20
All in all $247 dollars
Where are you getting the $3 monitor at homie?
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I think $3 is a stretch, but since these old games don't exactly require 8k, I think you can find some pretty cheap 1080 24" monitors out there on eBay (used or otherwise). TS mentioned goodwill, though.
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Amazon. They are 4:3 and VGA, but all of the retro games run at that resolution anyway. Then All you have to do is buy a VGA to HDMI adapter and plug it strait into the raspberry pie.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_...2115011&ie=UTF8&qid=1532466436&rnid=386442011
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Amazon. They are 4:3 and VGA, but all of the retro games run at that resolution anyway. Then All you have to do is buy a VGA to HDMI adapter and plug it strait into the raspberry pie.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_36_0?fst=asff&rh=n:172282,n:!493964,n:541966,n:1292115011,p_n_feature_three_browse-bin:724227011,p_36:1253503011&bbn=1292115011&ie=UTF8&qid=1532466436&rnid=386442011
I didn't even remember that VGA LCD existed...
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The red and green machine in the OP have 20" Dell 4:3 LCD VGA monitors in them and the games look great. 20" 4:3 is like 25 inch 16:9 though as far as how big your characters are going to be.
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And like you said, the vast majority of these old games were in 4:3 to begin with so its not like you're losing anything by going with one of these old VGA LCDs. I spent a lot of time hunting for a screen for my handheld project and was essentially forced to buy a widescreen LCD because it was all I could find that was HDMI compatible. The pinout standards for LCDs is all over the place (30 pin TTL, 40 pin TTL, 50 pin MIPI, 20 pin LVDS, etc etc etc), so unless you know exactly what you're looking for and can provide a translator chip and frame buffer you're stuck with existing off-the-shelf solutions. So my 7" widescreen is actually a 5.7" 4:3 most of the time.
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Collector here:
The games I have are:
APB - This one is an odd one that was pretty awesome in the arcades. Every so many levels you have to make a boss bad guy pull over and then choke him until he confesses at the police station. It is a fun game but not in a competitive game sort of way. First Atari game I got.
Toobin - a fun atari game. It was a blast in the 80s when it came out. Second Atari game I got.
Xybots - first real 3d shooter. Pretty impressive for its time and a lot of fun. Third Atari game I got.
Super Sprint - A lot of fun with 3 players. Very cutthroat. Single player is fun to try to get on internet high score list. There is one guy on the internet who is a god and is way way better than anyone else. Fourth Atari game I got.
Double Play - Unique controls for pitching and hitting. Very novel for at the time. Still fun. It also tracks batting averages and pitching stats for sets of birthdays and initials. Fun record keeping for the time.
World Series- Double play but better. I got a japanese cartridge for the naomi that is a baseball game too.
Tokyo Cop - with motion platform. It was a motion platform for $200. Its fun in a "I am going to drink and drive through traffic to catch a bad guy" sort of way.
I really enjoyed Atari's run on arcade game in the mid to late 80s. The only one that I really want that I don't have is Paperboy but the price on that got up way too high. The game is fun but it is actually better emulated. People forget how much lag was in the controls of the arcade game. It was a lot of fun though. Punch Out is like that too. People remember the game being crazy fun but the controls lag a lot.
Some of the vector games were pretty cool like Gravitar. The screen is drawn with vectors rather than with scanned lines. This allows the images to be really bright because instead of only lighting up a spot on each pass, the game refreshes a spot after each image has been drawn. That is why the bullets in Asteroids are incredibly bright. Playing these kind of games are a treat in a darkroom. You can't do the same with a CRT or LCD monitor. I passed on a nice Gravitar at $1200 that had a good vector monitor. Kind of regret that one.
I got a bunch of pinballs too but they are expensive as fuck compared to arcade machines.
By the way, PI machines suck at accurate emulation. You are better just using an old laptop with mame and a hyperspin frontend.
The games I have are:
APB - This one is an odd one that was pretty awesome in the arcades. Every so many levels you have to make a boss bad guy pull over and then choke him until he confesses at the police station. It is a fun game but not in a competitive game sort of way. First Atari game I got.
Toobin - a fun atari game. It was a blast in the 80s when it came out. Second Atari game I got.
Xybots - first real 3d shooter. Pretty impressive for its time and a lot of fun. Third Atari game I got.
Super Sprint - A lot of fun with 3 players. Very cutthroat. Single player is fun to try to get on internet high score list. There is one guy on the internet who is a god and is way way better than anyone else. Fourth Atari game I got.
Double Play - Unique controls for pitching and hitting. Very novel for at the time. Still fun. It also tracks batting averages and pitching stats for sets of birthdays and initials. Fun record keeping for the time.
World Series- Double play but better. I got a japanese cartridge for the naomi that is a baseball game too.
Tokyo Cop - with motion platform. It was a motion platform for $200. Its fun in a "I am going to drink and drive through traffic to catch a bad guy" sort of way.
I really enjoyed Atari's run on arcade game in the mid to late 80s. The only one that I really want that I don't have is Paperboy but the price on that got up way too high. The game is fun but it is actually better emulated. People forget how much lag was in the controls of the arcade game. It was a lot of fun though. Punch Out is like that too. People remember the game being crazy fun but the controls lag a lot.
Some of the vector games were pretty cool like Gravitar. The screen is drawn with vectors rather than with scanned lines. This allows the images to be really bright because instead of only lighting up a spot on each pass, the game refreshes a spot after each image has been drawn. That is why the bullets in Asteroids are incredibly bright. Playing these kind of games are a treat in a darkroom. You can't do the same with a CRT or LCD monitor. I passed on a nice Gravitar at $1200 that had a good vector monitor. Kind of regret that one.
I got a bunch of pinballs too but they are expensive as fuck compared to arcade machines.
By the way, PI machines suck at accurate emulation. You are better just using an old laptop with mame and a hyperspin frontend.
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I was born in 1980, so I got to experience the arcades growing up and spent my fair share of time in them as a kid. A friend of mine has been building these kind of as a hobby and selling them for around $500 bucks.
They run off a $35 raspberry pie computer and run emulates. I have an arcade stick that I play emulators with on my computer, but one of these would go good in my man cave. He said they cost him around $250 to build.
I'm a carpenter by trade and am pretty nerdy so I could build and program one of these by myself, but he would sell me one for $450 and I think it would be worth spending the $200 extra dollars to just have him do it.
I only like the real arcade machines. If you are near a Barcade go to it and get your rocks off
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That's pretty cool, TS. Is that your buddy's setup with the Zelda and hockey game? He's a man after my own heart.
On a side note, I wish Galloping Ghost Arcade was about 480 miles closer to me. This place is my heaven.
On a side note, I wish Galloping Ghost Arcade was about 480 miles closer to me. This place is my heaven.
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I went to a few of these when I was in NYC a couple years ago. Good craft beer selection and old-school arcades is where it's at.
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Some of these DYI arcade machines can get pretty nuts though. Something like this would be sweet if you had the room for it.
That looks awesome. How much would that cost?
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Lol... Like there is some huge difference. There are American an Japanese style joysticks and buttons, but you are still getting the same experience with a multicade. The atmosphere of a retro arcade establishment would be the only thing that is different.
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Why is that? If you're running the same emulator with the same rom, shouldn't it be the same accuracy?
If you're ever in NH you should hit up Funspot, largest arcade in the world.That's pretty cool, TS. Is that your buddy's setup with the Zelda and hockey game? He's a man after my own heart.
On a side note, I wish Galloping Ghost Arcade was about 480 miles closer to me. This place is my heaven.
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PI is a very very weak computer. Why do I care about PI if a used laptop is going to be faster, easier to config, and more powerful?
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I'm not sure how much it would be to build one. You could probably do it for around $700-$1000 if you did everything from scratch, but they go for around $3000-$4000 for the custom built ones. This would be kind of cool too if you had a nice bar area.
The Joy stick is integrated with the raspberry pie and goes for $200. The rest you would have to provide, but it's a lot less bulky.
https://www.ebay.com/i/332155346382?chn=ps
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I think I'd rather have a pinball machine than a video game cabinet taking up space. They are both cumbersome, but the pinball would likely get more use long-term? But maybe it would wind up like a pool table, covered in laundry, lol.
I was born in the early 70's and used to go to arcades all the time. They used to be everywhere until the mid 80's when they started to die off, slowly. I think maybe early 90's was about the end of them. Original Nintendo was the beginning of the end for arcades.
I was born in the early 70's and used to go to arcades all the time. They used to be everywhere until the mid 80's when they started to die off, slowly. I think maybe early 90's was about the end of them. Original Nintendo was the beginning of the end for arcades.
