Arcades outside of monitor work are very easy to repair compared to pins. IMO

Most people either download software on a pc and encode all the buttons through the keyboard.

Or buy a multicade board from someplace like jammaboards.com

Money depends on games and controls. It can be very very cheap or a few grand to make or buy something nice.

Im not a big fan of the MAME but to each there own, there was a guy who lived by me called me and wanted to sell his for $1200 I thought and it had 70 games or so......I could find out if its still available if you want to make a road trip.
edit-Neo Geo is a really good counter to getting the MAME, those I really enjoy! there was just a thread on pin side, Jamma Boards makes a 161-1 cartridge for it.

Are u looking for a 60 in 1 multicade? Do u want one in a Ms Pacman cabinet? I have connections..

I got a cocktail multicade from Arcadeshop years ago.Its worked perfect ever since I bought it.Great quality.I would recomend them If you want a new one.

I've built a few. I've got a nice 60 in 1 in a restored/restenciled Pacman cabinet and a 19 in 1 in a custom mini Ghosts N Goblins cab. If you want one built for you, make sure you get a restored dedicated cab and not a crappy cab painted black and covered in cheap inkjet multi/collage arcade artwork. Phoenix arcade sells the best arcade multi board right now. Best emulation out there, but the board alone will cost you $300+.

Get on the road, John's waiting for you.

The iCade is a nice 60 in 1 system, and I think I heard they've added more games to the updated version. The kit comes with a small board you mount inside the cabinet and comes ready with Jamma and VGA output connections. Works great if you're converting a Neo Geo cabinet. You can remove games from the list too if you have kids and don't want them playing certain games. Seems to work well on locations too.

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/60-in-1-icade-classic-multigame-jamma-pcb-verqb-pcb-60in1qb.html

How hard is it to hook up the phoenix board and get running?

If you want all the bling check out hyperspin front end.
I would go with a pc based cab before I bought one of those 60 in 1 boards etc. That's if you don't mind putting in a little work.
Now if you already have a nice jamma cab and want a plug and play deal get a 60 in 1 board etc.

Where can I get the control panel? I have an Arkanoid game I was considering converting to a 60-1 game, but it just has 2 shooter buttons. Do I just drill mine out, make my own? Should I add a trackball? I see the site above sells a complete cabinet wiring harness, with connectors for 10 bucks. Seems cheap to me.

Always go hyperspin.

Trackballs are nice....dials are a pain. Dial & a track ball is annoying to get going.

Would I just put the trackball where the dial is now? Didn't even think of that . Seems like the logical spot. Thanks Law!!

Might as well. You're going to be doing a lot of drilling though. You'll have do make that hole bigger, then drill for joystick, and a ton of buttons.

I built this one a few years ago and its been great. All HAPP controls, arcade monitor. And its PC based so i have internet, a full sound system, jukebox and a dvd player to watch movies on it. I made custom joysticks for it well that i sell here http://www.dragonjoystick.com/ available in multiple colors. Its definitely a nice addition to the game room with all the old classics to play and every other conceivable game on it you can imagine from Atari to Intelivision, i think there is 20,000 plus games on it now including all the top PC games as well like Myst and Half-life, its cool. Cost about 2000 to make. And wiring the controls takes a fair bit of skill. But worth it.

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http://www.dreamhomearcades.com/page.aspx?index=00000018&gallery_cmd=load&gallery_index=00000004

This guy makes the best ones IMHO... I am having him make me a tron cabinet one as we speak with a two player layout. He loads over 24,000 games from old school and new school arcade, console, and pc games. If anyone here is going to have one built pm me as a referral from me would be nice thx. Also check out his games he has done you can go to a site and custom design your own graphics for your cabinet if you want. they range from high 2K-4K a machine depending on what your doing.

I have a 1943 jamma cabinet and i bought that 100 dollar icade 60 in 1 jamma board and it just had the two buttons and a joystick thats all the games on these need you actually dont even need the trackball you can turn it on and off if you have one or not it will just use the joystick instead..mine was plug and play nothing else needed ..I did not want something that i would have to butcher my original cabinet cause i still have a working original board set in this cabinet..I have been thinking of making a pc powered one already have a gorf cabinet but it's difficult to find info on how to make one it's kinda confusing to figure out the programming and how to install the roms

If you go the PC route, I thought using a J-Pac made it the easiest.
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html

I know where I can get a older Golden Tee that doesn't work (I think he wants $100 for it). Would that cabinet work good? It already has the track ball, working monitor, and it'd be easy to add buttons. Yes or no?

it has to be a 1985 or newer cabinet to be jamma I think golden tee should work i think they were made in the 90s you would have to look at the connector going to the board..the track ball should work you might have to add a joystick for the the other games they sell a kit for 39 dollars that has a bunch of buttons and joysticks

there is also diffrent icade boards for horizontal or vertical monitors if i remember right

Yep David does top notch work and offers great customer service. free updates for life if 24K games are not enough. Friends come over and love to play the classics. Machine can be set up with X360 controllers for PS1, N64 and Game Cube titles. Wireless light guns, steering wheel and DDR dance pad for 1530 songs. I love my Donkey Kong Kong Off custom cab! Pics in my Pinside game room. Video listed here :
http://m.youtube.com/?reason=8&rdm=1540#/user/dreamhomearcades?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2Fdreamhomearcades

How the cab works:
http://www.dreamhomearcades.com/page.aspx?index=00000011

Monitor work is a friggin' joke compared to MPU diagnosis and repair, the only time it gets real annoying IMO is if you're doing tube swaps on a chassis.

Cap kit solves 50%, posting on KLOV will get you an answer real fast on the other 50%. Just need to be careful discharging a CRT.

I would go with MAME reluctantly.

PROS: You can do anything and make it as complex or as simple as you want. You can have a ridiculous number of games especially if you include console games.

CONS: You can get near perfect emulation but it takes a TON of time and effort. Game selection is limited by what joysticks you want on your control panel. Unless you have every joystick known to man on a gargantuan cab you can't really avoid this.

My cab is an original Joust cab with the 19" WG monitor still in it. I've got a decent dual core pc with 4gb ram, 120gb drive, arcade vga video card, 2.1 speaker setup, happ controls etc. I use hyperspin and have 500+ arcade games all with transitions and preview videos. 600+ nes,genesis,tg16,snes games. I also run jukebox software and all of these things run from the control panel buttons and joysticks no keyboard. Preping the cab, painting, stenciling, putting new decals and making it work probably took me 3 weeks.

The hard part is getting all the games dialed in with the right resolutions and button layouts. The original Joust came with a 19" horizontal aspect monitor and the joust board output 320x240 resolution to that monitor. Once you had your crt setup correctly(vert horz size hold etc) you left it that way and it worked for years etc. When you have 500+ arcade games you have to start changing resolutions manually or stretching the resolutions to your screen size which degrades quality. If you want to play vertical aspect games you have to either stretch the resolution accordingly or build a separate cab with a vert aspect monitor. This part has taken me months and its still an ongoing process.

Ive had my MAME cab a little over a year and have put unknown hours of work into it and its almost done. As soon as it's perfect, with all the games running correctly, all the consoles running perfectly, Im going to trade or sell it for a pin. My advice to you is to not buy a multicade or make a mame machine because its a waste of time, money and space that could be occupied by a pin!

edit

I also spent a ton of time on mine, and don't use it that much.

Mini Neo-Geo + 161-1

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No Golden Tee cabinet. He does have an older (mid 90's I think) Silver Strike bowling cabinet. It has the monitor, and I didn't ask if it works or not. I could get this cheap. I don't want to get too fancy, but I'd like to make one. I need another winter project, as the 4 or 500 I have now aren't enough.

Also in favor of using a monitor instead of crt

If I buy a Jamma board, do I still need to deal with this, oer is it only and issue with PC emulation? Thanks.

Yea, I'm not so sure either. I think the people that are selling nice multicades or MAME setups, with new or refurbished cabs that have all new art, controls etc, are able to sell their games and not lose a bunch of money. The ads that I see on craigslist forever are the cookie cutter cabs that are just painted black, have a 60-1 or a weak MAME setup, LCD monitor and are asking $900-1200. Im going to be looking to trade mine for one of the "bargin" pins when its done. I want to have it setup so that someone with zero computer skills wont have an unforeseen issue and include how to docs for adding and removing games etc. Ill probably still have to give some free support though

I think your family and friends will get a kick out of it though even if you don't. My guests love to come over and just scroll through my arcade list, constantly saying "I remember playing that one!"

Yeah, because Neo Geo Minis are SO easy to find... much less in nice condition...

You can make the MAME resolution thing as hard or as as easy as you want. It just depends on how important being as close to 100% emulation is to you. You can have mame stretch the image of every game so it always fits, but the image wont be "good" as the original. Personally I don't really see the disadvantage of stretching the image, it doesn't bother me. I did spend the money to get the arcade vga graphics card, so I'm trying to get as many games as close to the original as possible.

I always wondered about the jamma boards myself. I would imagine that the jamma board displays the same resolution regardless of what game is being played. They have jamma boards that have both vert and horizontal games on the same board right?

Postmaster if you buy the correct icade jamma board it should be plug and play... most cabinets have all the wiring for more buttons already the dip switch settings are all you have to mess with on the 60 in 1 board ..the computer emaluation is much harder and confusing imho

It took me 10 minutes to get my original 1943 cabinet running with the 60 in 1

Buy a Tiptonware hard drive, then donate to emumovies & Hyperspin for their efforts.

Mameroom.com has kits to get you going quick.

Parts are easily found NIB on ebay @ great prices.

MAME is great. Although dedicated machines & CRT's are cool I love my LCD based MAME with its gnarly control panel & superb sound.

Here is a thread with a few Pinsiders showing off their rig... As well as a few d bags chiming in. Take a peek, I will help you in any way I can. http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wtb-huge-mame-arcade-for-500

That's all dependent on what kind of cabinet your Arkinoid was installed in (Romstar only sold Arknoid as a kit. If you have one, most likely it was a different game, or it was a new empty cabinet).
If it's a flat wood control panel, you can make a new on pretty easily. If it's a formed metal control panel, depending on the condition, you can usually work around existing holes, or punch new ones as needed. In many cases, you can even buy new blank control panels for many cabinets (I.E. Pac-Man, Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man style, Williams cabinets and others) from many vendors.

I bought my wife a cocktail multicade awhile back. It's wood and came with something like 48 games on it. Coin operated too which is pretty cool. It came from "Abrightideaamusements". The guy built it in florida and included a subwoofer in the bottom which makes space invaders sound incredible. Joysticks have color changing LED's but the thing that I really like about it is that it's a two sided/two player have and hardly takes up any room at all. I'll still play Zaxxon or Dig Dug from time to time. Her favorite is a toss up between Space Invaders and Qix. I paid $1,800 shipped.

Bill- if you go with PC emulation, check out X-Arcade. It's basically a plug-n-play controller that plugs into the USB port on your computer. That's what I've got. I can show you my setup on Wednesday.

As stated earlier, MAME has a HUGE time commitment involved if you want to 'get it working good.' It can be very overwhelming, especially to someone without intermediate computer skills. You can't just download a file, run it, and pick the games you want to use.

Super easy.

Mine is a play on this:
http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/steptaitorama.htm

Ipac and button wiring is so simple. Common ground plus one signal wire to each switch. Usb to the comp. and thats it.

Mine is about as blasphemous as it gets with a 20"lcd but that means it only takes up 2'^2. No space at all compared to the real deal crt's.

Ours was built for about 1000 bucks not including the computer parts we had. It works well for the limited space i have.

Do it all yourself. In the end its just a really complicated case mod for a pc.

Its a great compromise and you can try out all the games before you buy a real one. It also is a media server/jukebox for my family room!

mame1.jpg mame2.jpg

I really think you can get some great multi's without having to go the MAME/aircraft carrier control panel route. As mentioned, Arcadeshop sells blank multi panels for Midway cabs. As long as you go with a Jamma harness, most multi boards are plug n play, you just have to worry about monitor orientation on some of them. Phoenix multi boards are update-able, so you can can keep adding games via the internet as they're released. That's what's going into my stealth Pacman, which currently has a 60 in 1 in it:

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WOW, I was honestly going to post about this exact situation a little while ago.

I am on a budget. My wife either wants a dedicated street fighter 2 or a machine that will play it.

People around here want WAY TOO MUCH money for a decent SF2. Most want $500+ which is nuts unless its like NIB condition.

So I am on a budget build now. I priced out the 4 to 8 way joysticks, the buttons, the J-pac...and the price was about at the price of a X-arcade. The x-arcade then comes with a track ball and has all the wood and a few extra buttons I didnt spec.

So I have an old pentium 4 PC tower I am going to use, and then buy the $199 x-arcade. I figure if I end up not liking the x-arcade I can sell it since its adaptable to consoles and would be an easy sell. I have an old 27" data monitor that has VGA and also has great speakers and a subwoofer built in.

I plan to build a pedestal for the TV and a shelf for the controller and call it a day until I find either a dedicated SF2 or a Jamma cabinet that I can pop in one of those 128 games in 1 boards. Its going to run me about $199 for the controller, $20 in lumber, and mostly my time. I hope it works out, Ill eventually get to it an post about it.

Until then, tell me why I shouldnt do what I am doing.

I've got a similar setup. Xarcade mounted onto a SF cabinet. (it's not a pretty cabinet by any means) Tore out the monitor and put in a VGA. Put the tower down by the coin door. Boom- as long as you've got the ability to set up MAME, it's a GREAT vlaue

I also use the X-Arcade Tankstick and it's great. It even has pinball buttons on the sides for PC pinball, plus a mouse button on each side. I have a Autohotkey mod running where I can use the side mouse buttons for nudging, and it's a great setup.

I use MaLa for the frontend, which is free and very customizable.

That's what I use too.

Thats how I got started. I bought my sf2 for $250 on CL then thought it would be cool to have a pin to go with my vid.

AHHH!!!! Haha, totally jealous. A guy wanted $400 for his CONVERTED SF2 which was an old pacman he retrofitted really badly. I offered him $100 and he said he couldnt take less then $350. what a joke. Some day....some day.

Go here: http://www.tiptonware.com/ its pretty much plug & play

Any one know where I can find a good schematic/plans for a mame cabinet with an x-arcade tank stick with trackball? I am having issues finding good solid plans.