Ray B's Arcade Game Collection and MAME Cabinet Project

People keep offering me "minis" AKA "cabaret" games (which is odd, because when you're actually looking for one, they are "r@re" and worth their weight in gold to the people who have them). Well, there's no reason for me to mind being the "mini guy". Maybe one day I'll give Todd of TNT Amusement a run for his money (check the link ;-) ) .

What is a mini arcade game? These are original coin-operated arcade games, but in a small form-factor. They were meant as a better solution for locations with limited space for amusements, like restaurants. Most of them use 13" monitor rather than the standard 19" size.

So the latest is a Midway Omega Race. Complete but filthy and presumed non-working since it has battery acid damage on the main board. I sold my Atari Dominos to pay for and make room for this one.

I've imposed a freeze on any purchases and this includes even arcade related desires! This time of year is always expensive, for a variety of reasons (Christmas shopping, holiday travel, prepping two cars for winter, needing to reduce debts, etc). However I did have the good fortune of being offered a complete but non-working Star Wars in exchange for my Crystal Castles. It was tough to part with Bently Bear, since the cabinet, like most Atari cabinets has a lot of charm, but alas, I really wanted a Star Wars much more.

Trades like this are always a little risky.You never know when one person's "good condition" really is everyone else's idea of crap, but I had faith in this one, and a broken Star Wars is still a good deal. Luckily it turned out to be in really nice condition and complete. The only down side is that it has a problem where no visuals show up. (I've narrowed it down to a board set problem, but there could still be a monitor problem as well). Hopefully I'll have the funds to get the board fixed soon, and be shooting down some tie fighters! In terms of restoration, I'll be doing some minor art touch ups here and there, and need a new yoke overlay, since it currently has a "Fire Fox" yoke.

I've also been cleaning and prepping the Missile Command cabaret cabinet for a part swap with the cocktail. I got most of the musty stink out of it, repained the metal parts (not the control panel) and swapped in my rebuilt power supply, AR-II and game board from the cocktail I have. I also fixed a couple broken cabinet parts. I then promptly killed the monitor by adjusting a voltage poteniometer that I thought was something else. So now I'll need to swap the monitor out of the cocktail too (followed by the new rebuilt trackball). Hopefully I'll be able to fix the monitor and then sell off the cocktail once and for all. (OH! I repainted the legs for it, and the Asteroids cocktail too).

Not much to report other than I sold off Star Trip (don't know enough about the power supply to repair it). But it did pay for a Sega Turbo mini. I also recently acquired a Missile Command mini and Asteroids cocktail. All three of these machines work, except Asteroids has a screen problem that may be solved with new caps or flyback.

I've been busy with a project called Rise & Ruin. It's eaten up time in just about everything from hobbies, family life, household chores and even the bank account! Here's a quick run down of what's new:

New machines:
Pac Man cocktail (empty, nonworking). Have been restoring this. (Feb 2006)
Robotron mini/cabaret which needs "de-converting" (Sept 2007).
Monster Village pachinko machine. (Christmas gift! cool japanese kitsch)
Star Trip pinball machine. Got this in a trade for a multi-game cocktail table (Mar 2008)

Lastly, I've somehow gotten my brother in law sucked into this hobby, and now he has a bunch of classic machines too.

Went to an auction with no intention of buying anything--came home with an Atari Centipede cabaret. It's stinky, but completely intact and not missing any parts. First inspection revealed one popped fuse and a power plug with no plug! I'm crossing my fingers for an easy fix here.

Thanks to fellow Canadian collector Daryl Pike, I now have the artwork for the front of the cabinet, as well as the complete glass, bezel and smoked plexiglass that goes over the monitor. He also provided an original coin bucket!

And from BYOAC, a lurker sold me a Gottlieb logo coin door. These are hard to find. Unfortunately, there seems to be a mismatch between that door, manufactured by Wico, and my cabinet's coin door frame which is by Coin Controls.

Just a quick update, since I got alot done in December. My PC based arcade cabinet is now fully playable. I'd say it's over 90% complete. You can seel below it needs a couple small cosmetic touches on the CP, a marquee, and maybe some side-art. Like the control panel art? Designed it myself and had it printed over at MameMarquees.com.

It's been a while since I updated this page, but that doesn't mean there has not been any progress...

CRYSTAL CASTLES: Over the summer I rebuilt the entire marquee fixture and applied a new reproduction overlay. Same goes for the speaker grill and control panel. It also received new trackball bearings, rollers and translucent ball. From the front, this cab now looks brand new, (if you ignore the kickplate area and t-molding). A new problem appeared recently. Sound is now lower in one speaker (no explainable cause for it).

JUNO FIRST: Thanks to "Menace", I acquired a vertical shelf-mount monitor. I have not yet tested it, but I did mount it in the cab, along with the control panel I got from QuarterArcade. And then the most important piece of the puzzle should be arriving any day now: The original PCB! (bought through Ebay)

MAME: My horizontal mame cabinet received some coats of paint, blue t-molding, and PartsExpress self-adhesive black vinyl on the front. I finished setting up all software, and hardware. A brand new monitor was installed, and most hardware is mounted with wiring cleanly routed and mounted with cable clamps.

As of a couple weeks ago I have room to move in my basement. So I have jumped on the chance to finally move ahead on my projects. Here's my generic "Sega/Gremlin" style cabinet which I am turning into a horizontal monitor multi-game machine. The original finish on this thing is a wood grain veneer. It looked good and is in great condition, but I'm not a fan of 70's wood grain.

I sanded everything real well and then used Zinsser "Stain Cover". This is an oil-based primer especially made for difficult surfaces. In this case, I had first tried a latex paint that supposedly required no priming. Big mistake. It scratched off so easily. This primer though sticks to anything and what you see below is after only one coat.

I've cleaned up the inside of the Juno cab (vaccuum and a wipe-down). Also used a Mr Clean Magic Eraser on the art inside the monitor area. That cleaned it up to a near-new condition. Wow! Used the eraser on scuff marks on the side art too and it took them right off. Next time you get a dirty control panel, I suggest giving it a go with the Magic Eraser before jumping on getting a new overlay.

I also ordered a control panel from QuarterArcade.com. The overlay is in good condition, but "average to poor" where it bends at the edges (cracked and peeling). I will most likely scan this in and create my own vector art to print a new overlay.

The best thing about this panel is that it is complete. All original buttons, wiring and original joystick are there.

Well, I guess this is sort of my holy grail machine. It's been on my want list for a long time, and it's a rare machine. It's JUNO FIRST, my favorite space shooter. I don't know why it wasn't more successful, but it had a low production run. I played it for about a month at a local convenience store back in '83 but never saw it anywhere else. I managed to roll-over the score (rolls at 1 million) and get something like 1,067,000. It took me about a half hour to get that score. When I entered my initials, my score was stored as "67,000" so it wasn't even at the top of the list! Grrr!

This is going to be my last full sized upright video game for a while until I get them all restored. Moving these things into a basement is a 2-man job, and even there I'm putting alot of strain on my back and shoulder joints.

Got a mini (aka "cabaret" style) from a local collector. It looks like a generic; maybe even started out as a poker machine. It has an Arkanoid spinner on it, but no game, and no proper monitor. This was going to be a vertical MAME cab, but that might change due to the news in my next update...

I decided that it costs too much to restore an old crusty game like Crusty Castles, and it got really boring real fast. It's more fun to play lots of games instead of just one stupid one, so I have converted this machine into a MAME station.

It's called "Crystal Cade". I started by ripping out the main guts and throwing them in teh trash. MAME can play Crystal Castles, so that stuff was no good. I wanted my own marquee name, so that went into the trash too (it was all damaged anyways). As you can see I made my own marquee. I junked the speaker grill too. It got in the way of my marquee.

The next step was the control panel. I painted it black to match the monitor bezel. At first I wanted to put an X-Arcade panel on there, but they are too expensive. So instead I got a cool chinese made joystick. It makes really loud clicky sounds and I can really feel the corners. I think it will be great in fighting games (my favorite).

Teh old trackball that was in there was faded and I don't know how to hook it up to my PC, so I threw that out. I was left with a big hole in the middle, so I came up with the coolest thing: BEER HOLDER! *Woot!* (click the photo up there to see it larger).

I installed a PC in there, but I can't figure out how to make the picture show on the monitor. The monitor has the old game graphics burned in it anyway, I think I'll just replace it with a 21" PC monitor. That will rock.

I just acquired a Crystal Castles upright by Atari.* It's a little beat up, but completely functional. As with most games I acquire, the fun is in restoring them. Already I have purchased new reproductions overlays for the control panel, marquee and speaker grills. And I have replaced the trackball bearings. The monitor is really burned in, but crisp.

(Yes it came with a marquee and trackball.
I just had already removed them here)

I have already removed the marquee assembly. It looks like this machine took a tumble off a truck or something! The whole top has gaps where stuff just isn't fitting together properly. The marquee asembly was smashed into 4 pieces, and everything was held together with wood screws and other hack-job techniques. The front of the speaker grill is now a square of plexiglass poorly hot-glued in place. I'm in the process of fixing all this as properly as possible. This web page here is proving to be very helpful.

* As of October 2008 this game is no longer in my possession; I traded it for a Star Wars.

I acquired this machine 1 year and 2 weeks ago, in non-working order. After many bouts of letting it sit there and occasionally patching up some problems with it, I finally have a fully working machine. Thanks go to "Vader88" on BYOAC who sold me his working board.

Prior to this here's the laundry list of refurbing I accomplished:

I gave plenty of advance notice to people I had on my list wanting the Wico ball-tops with fire button installed, so now they are available to anyone else who wants them. I offer a variety of options. You can buy just the ball-top shafts with nothing else (add your own button, or LED or whatever). You can have them fit Happ Super joystick bases. And you can specify the length of wiring.

Well, the joystick shafts are at the machinist and my order's been put in with Radio Shack for several of the buttons needed for the RetroFX joysticks mentioned before. In other news, I mocked up some new designs for my upright MAME cabinet. This time I opted to see what colors might look cool, and also I'm toying with using the RetroFX logo as the marquee (apologies to Dirk! :-> )

I'm kind of liking the red design! It's unfortunate I already bought blue t-molding, but I guess I could always sell it off...

I've been posting most news and updates about the Wico ball-top joysticks with fire buttons mounted in the tops, on ArcadeControls.com.

The latest news in brief is I am still sourcing a machinist to have the joystick shafts properly and accurately modified, however I was inspired to attempt the job myself using a Dremel and tungsten carbide cutter bit. The problem with that was that I needed a means to A. Hold the shaft steady, and B. rotate the shaft so I could shave the metal off evenly. So I pulled out my old Lego Mindstorms kit and came up with this:

It's just a motor attached to a rubber wheel, which rotates the joystick shaft, which is held in place with a knitting needle. As the shaft rotates, I can use the Dremel on it. There isn't alot of torque, but it works. In order to know how far up to shave off, I had the shaft taped with painter's tape to mark where I should stop. The end result is this:

Since I'm going to put together all the parts I've gathered for my MAME cabinet *any day now*, I thought I'd mock-up some images to plan out what the art design could look like. So I took a photograph of my empty generic Double Dragon cabinet, and I Photoshopped it to look like the pics below.

I had already settled in my mind on white sides, blue trim and blue buttons. I was also already partial to the "blue nova" marquee, available from MameMarquees.com. There's also the Defender style, and Pacman style which I like, but then it makes the cab theme more multi-colored rather than black/white/blue themed.

The next part to figure out is the side-art. There are two options shown here that can be purchased from MameMarquees.com. But the thing I never liked about small decals like these is the way they just sit in the middle and don't really work with the shape of a cabinet. What's always impressed me, and attracted me about older classic games was the elaborate full side artwork. That leaves me with the option to design and paint my own. But of what? So far, I have no ideas...

Having posted my idea with the Command Control joysticks on ArcadeControls.org, I of course received some questions about the shafts. I took some pictures to show how the shafts needed to be machined (lathed) to fit the arcade bases properly. In the process I figured I might as well just go ahead and try out some buttons as well, and document the whole thing with photos.

Well, I discovered pretty quickly that these NOS (new old stock) ball shafts are even longer than the original Command Control joysticks. They're also made of some sort of aluminum or metal alloy that's much lighter than the originals.

Left to right: Original Command Control button assembly, actuator
parts, used Command Control shaft, new Command Control shaft,
original arcade shaft, arcade actuator parts.

The length is a problem because the original button "rod" ends up being too short for these new shafts! But that's not quite a big deal. Those buttons stick up a little high, are very visible (they are white) and they'd be pretty hard to come by anyways, requiring that you gut a Command Control joystick in the first place.

So the natural alternative is using some small micro push buttons, and the wiring can just go through the shaft's "tube". With the original Command Control button, I'd have to find a way to mount a leaf switch below the joystick base. All in all, it would be a pain. Here are two pushbuttons from Radio Shack that I mounted.

As you can see, one button is a perfect fit but it sticks out way too much. I'm going to have to try and dremel out the inside of the joystick hole deeper and see if these could ever be of any use (*update July 3rd: they don't fit at all). The second kind of button I got to fit, but it required some dremeling of the inside of the joystick hole, as well as sanding off the button's threading.

The end result looks pretty good. I'm not too keen on the black circle, but unfotunately these buttons come in only two varieties: Black with black rim, and red with black rim (which you see pictured here). Red on red would be nice, but you know, it would end up looking like a tit! (Good thing, or a distraction?)

MY MAME CABINET WILL GET CLASSIC RED BALLS WITH TOP FIRE BUTTONS! - Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Last week in the message forums of ArcadeControls.org, I alluded to a "special" joystick I was going to use, but I was being very hush hush about it. Basically, I didn't want to talk about it because I still had to get my hands on one more stick, and I didn't want the Ebay bids run up by other MAME-iacs wanting to use the same idea.

Well I finally got ahold of a second stick, so now I'm set and I can share the idea, (plus I also have some parts for sale!)

Here's what I'm doing for my controls:

First, I am a fan of the classic red ball-top sticks. I also prefer Wico leaf-switch style joys. So I got ahold of a couple used Wico leaf joys.

But then the next problem is that I really like the game Assault, and I want to be able to play it without resorting to foot-pedal fire buttons or swappable controls, or a massive control panel with two dozen different sticks. ;D

Welp, back in the day (early to mid 80's) Wico sold joystick controllers made for the home. The line was called "Command Control". They had a variety of joysticks, but the main thing about them was that they were supposedly made from the same parts that the real arcade joysticks were made of. Hmmm...

Here's a picture of "The Boss" (black and grey grip style), a red and black grip style, and the most popular, "bat handle" looks like:

Now you probably can see based on that last picture, why a light bulb went on above my head. I wondered if Wico truly used the EXACT same parts?? If so, I could have the classic red ball look, plus the bonus of fire buttons on top, so I can play games like Assault, or Tron!

So I bought one of those red ball top controllers off Ebay (they are quite rare. The bat handle though is very common). When I got it, I took it apart and sure enough there are some similarities. The rubber centering grommet seems to be the same as from the arcades. Joystick shaft and ball are the same quality. The leaf switches though are cheaper and smaller.

I dismantled the thing and tried fitting the shaft into a Wico joystick base. A PERFECT FIT. With one exception though. The shaft's bottom part, with the smaller diameter, is just about an inch too short. I couldn't get the plastic sleeve and E clip on! The solution here will be to have the shafts machined with a lathe to match the correct length.

So that's where that story ends. The next tid-bit I have to share is that I just acquired 37 NOS ball-shafts. They are the shaft and ball only. They have holes in them for where the button goes, but no buttons came with them (nor any other parts).

If there is enough interest, I intend to have ALL of them machined to fit properly in a Wico base. I'll sell them at cost. You can always also buy complete contollers off Ebay to take apart and do as I did, but as I said, the ball-top ones are pretty rare.

For the button, I imagine that a small micro-button could probably be installed in the top hole, instead of trying to find the original button that's supposed to go there (it was a long plastic rod which activates a leaf switch at the bottom). I'm gonna go shop around and experiment with what small buttons are best for this. I'll post my findings.

I picked up a new upright last saturday. It'sa working Dominos by Atari. Made in 1976 (though probably mass distributed in 1977), this game is like the classic game of "blockade" that we've seen so many variations of (the most famous probably being the light-cycle game in Tron). Instead of a line drawing, you're placing a series of dominos. You lose when you hit a wall, your own dominos or your opponent's dominos. When that happens, your row of dominos fall down in sequence. It's kind of a neat idea for this kind of game (makes more sense than just blocky squares drawing in).

Hi. I'm "Ray B" and you may know me from such video games as Cool Spot, Looney Tunes BBall, Speedy Gonzales and the infamous Spore Cubes. I'm also the designer of this website and one of the main artists that worked on RetroFX Ghosts n Goblins. I host this site and I wanted to keep it active even though the RetroFX project is 'dead'. So I launched this section of this website about my personal obsession with classic arcade video games.

Classic arcade game collecting is nothing unique these days. A quick search on Google reveals a boat load of other "late twenties / early-thirties" geeks trying to relive childhood memories by either collecting old arcade machines, or by building their own and installing MAME in it. I'm doing both.

First the collecting came and went...and came back again. In 1992 I acquired my first arcade game cabinet for $150 us. (Correction: My first acquisition was a Star Trek pinball, but it didn't work and I eventually sold it after a faild attempt at repairing it). Back to the upright, it used to be some golfing game in a generic white cabinet. The size was decent, and it was in great condition with the monitor nice and crisp. My plan was to put my Super Nintendo console in it. This actually turned out to be way easier than it seems, by using a european "scart" cable. Scart is a tv format which has been around for ages in europe, and it's pretty much equivalent to how "Component" video works. The cable's connector has a variety of pins: You get RED, GREEN, BLUE, SYNC, GROUND, and LEFT & RIGHT sound. So right there, those are all the wires you need to get the average arcade cabinet to display video and sound from a SNES. (photos to come soon!) I have to tell you, playing SNES games with a real arcade joystick and buttons is so much better. Street Fighter II felt just like the arcade original, and playing Zelda was just great too.

My next acquisition was a Dynamo cut-corner upright with a little screen burn in the 20" monitor, but in otherwise excellent condition. I got this one for free, from my employer (Virgin Games) who wanted to dump it because "it no longer worked". I got it home, saw a wiring dangling off part of the monitor, soldered it back on and wouldn't you know it, perfect working order.

This cabinet was a "JAMMA" cabinet. And I immediately got the collecting bug for mid to late 80's arcade circuit boards I could plug into this cabinet and play. At the time, most boards or kits of that era sold for about $25 to $75. I don't remember in what order I bought these, but I got Black Tiger, Smash TV, Super Dodge Ball, and a Rolling Thunder kit (came with marquee, manual, joystick). (Think about those prices folks, when you see these boards up on Ebay. They are now 10 years older and probably 10 times as likely to break down!)

*Consider this... all this game collecting wasn't super cheap. I was spending every dollar I had. Living beyond my means. You'll see why I mention this, later...

So then I learned of coin-op auctions. I attended my first one and of course, being the young impulsive, obsessed guy I was, I couldn't leave without something, so I bought a Punch-Out! for $90. The control panel was really ratty, but then coincidentally, in a later auction I managed to get a NOS (new old stock) Super Punch-Out kit. This included a brand new control panel with buttons and joystick, and the board for Super Punch-Out. Yay!

Then came the day... Sunsoft of America (my employer) had to shut down all operations, save for a small skeleton crew. I was out of a job. I was living in California at the time, and being Canadian, I for some god damn incomprehensible to this day reason got it into my head that I would head back to "home" and try my hand at writing and selling shareware PC games. (Having seen the success of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Apogee's early releases).

I was out of money, had no savings, no credit, and had to move 3000 miles. Suddenly my collection (including also just about every home video game console ever made, and many cartridges) seemed very frivolous and pointless.

I finally found some spare time (miraculous!) and was able to put together and test my arcade trackball and "spinner" parts. Check out the photos below for a peek at my engineering skills. Yes, that's a cardboard box! Weak, huh? :-D It's the kind with the flip up lid, so I can easily open it up and mess with the parts inside. This is just a test for parts that will eventually go into my MAME cabinet.

The trackball was bought off Ebay almost 4 months ago. This was my first time finally trying it out. Guess what. It only works in one direction. :-( I could have sworn the auction had the item listed as "tested and working", but it's a bit late to go bitching at the seller. The Y axis just jitters the cursor instead of moving it. That means the optic sensor is sensing something, but probably only out of one "side".

As for the Arkanoid spinner, it was also bought off Ebay, about 3 months ago. It needs to be cleaned so it spins smoother, and the encoder wheel is cracked in half. (That causes the object movement on screen to stutter when moving slow).

So as for my "home-made console", here are some pics:

Here's the trackball and spinner console, with its own PC power supply to give it juice.

Open her up--We see the Opti-pac interface and other "guts".

The circuit board you see there is a device from Ultimarc which takes trackball and spinner input and "converts it" so that a PC thinks it's a standard serial mouse. I tell ya, it's nice to play Centipede, Tempest and Arkanoid with these! Not to mention, Forgotten Worlds! I may just have to buy a second spinner so I can play 2 player Forgotten Worlds. :-D

I've been searching and searching for Missile Command cocktail underlay art, to no avail, until recently, when I finally found someone willing to photograph his so I can create my own reproductions.

In my searching I've discovered a peculiar thing: There are Missile Command cocktail tables with Orange underlay artwork, and some have Blue. Does anyone know why there's more than one variation and what it means? Or are these just fading differently? It's a little hard to tell based on these photos.

And then here's yet another variant, yet this one seems more colorful than either of the examples above: Photo from KLOV

Created this section of the site. Expect more updates soon. For now, here's a quick rundown of things I own, and stuff I'm looking for:

Game cabinets owned: Galaga upright, Missile Command cocktail (not working yet & missing glass underlay), generic upright (empty & bad monitor), and a working Atari Dominos (1976 B&W game that plays like Snake). Added in 2005: Crystal Castles, Juno First, generic mini

Boards owned: Ghouls n Ghosts (courtesy of the great Dirk Stevens), Super Dodge Ball, Galaga 88, Galaga (bootleg with highscore, JAMMA adapter and switchable rapid fire chip), and what I think is Kangaroo.

Manuals owned: Galaga, complete Centipede manual and documentation set, Joust, Moon Patrol, Crystal Castles, and a couple other incomplete manuals.

Used Parts I have: *to be updated soon*, 5 LED Atari buttons with aluminum cones (not black plastic), Sprint 2 control panel (with wiring, but no controls), Gunforce control panel, 2 used 2 1/4" trackball balls, ...

Wanted:
- Centipede Cabaret manual
- 2 1/4 trackball ball (snow white)
- Wico over/under coin door frame (with or without doors)
- ~~A good, crisp but cheap 19" CGA monitor with vertical shelf mount!~~
- ~~100% working Missile Command board~~
- ~~Missile Command cocktail coin faceplate~~
- ~~Missile Command cocktail glass underlay artwork (scans are fine)~~
- ~~Cheap PC motherboard and CPU (500mhz to 1ghz will do)~~
- original Ghouls n Ghosts Manual
- ~~original Atari Missile Command cocktail table single-slot coin acceptor (chrome)~~
- Atari Missile Command top glass with intact artwork
- ~~Juno First PCB~~
- Juno First bezel artwork (original or repro) *located*
- Juno First flyer ~~and manual~~

Game cabs I sold: Punch Out! (with both Punch out and Super Punch Out PCBs, a generic Dynamo upright I used for my JAMMA boards, a small generic cab in which I installed a Super Nintendo (that was sweet!)

Boards I sold: Rolling Thunder (with marquee, and control panel--How I miss this one!), Punch Out!, Super Punch Out!, Shinobi, Smash TV, Black Tiger, ...