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Zoyx Progress Report

My turn to report in.

Vectrex: Arrived today. Well broken in. Only tried Mine Storm and Rip-off. Plays well and the games were lots of fun. They need a good cleaning because it is hit ‘n miss if they work. The controller’s joystick doesn’t center in the up/down, but it does in the left/right. Don’t know if this is the way it is supposed to be… I suspect not. The monitor has a noisy hum, but this is common among Vectrex’s. Received 8 games along with main unit.

Colecovision: Arrived yesterday. This didn’t work very well when I first got it. It has what is called a sprite shift. Mario would speckle and even shift left and right. Unplayable. From internet, I learned that the on/off switch was the probable culprit. I opened up the CV, and hit the on/off switch with compressed air/lubricant. That seemed to do the trick. Mario was now in focus. Got 11 games with this.

Mame: Lots of added stuff to my Slikstick/Mame computer… Made a stand for the monitor. Plugged in some better speakers and put them inside of the stand. Installed a panel for plugging in controllers and the speakers in the front. I have USB adapters for plugging in Atari/NES/SNES controllers. Wireless network adapter installed. Drilled a hole for plugging in the power more easily. Attached a USB TV adapter so you can plug in game consoles to it.

All righty… now a picture. Colecovision Q-bert is on the screen. Vectrex has Rip-off running on it. Yes, that’s in my living room… the bachelor life is rough!

Posted by Zoyx on September 11, 2008 at 8:13 pm

Comments (5)

Posted under: Arcade & Coin-Op, Computers & MAME, Consoles & Handhelds
Tags: colecovision, MAME, Retro, Vectrex

Fear and Loathing with Street Fighter IV

I found a really interesting article today from the (pseudo) legendary Jared Rea. It’s a fascinating look at how Capcom has completely bungled the marketing and availability of what should have been the biggest arcade release of the last 10 years. After such high hopes for the title, the pictures in the story give you a glimpse of the sad reality of the arcade version Street Fighter IV in North America. One player per cabinet? Give me a break…

Clicky.

Posted by Tim on September 10, 2008 at 11:19 am

Comments (1)

Posted under: Arcade & Coin-Op
Tags: Street Fighter IV

Sparbcade Progress Report

Perhaps trying to build 4 arcade machines in two months was a bit ambitious, but it looks like I’m going to pull it off. All 4 machines are at least mostly functional and will be fully functional well ahead of the party on October 11th.

Mortal Kombat has been pretty much finished for a while. All that’s left is to clean it up a bit, add some T-Molding and move the power switch from the back to the top of the cabinet. Eventually I would like to redo the control panel and replace the Street Fighter side art with actual Mortal Kombat side art but that’s going to wait a while.

Battle Arena Toshinden 2 just needs to have the monitor, wiring harness and circuit board fastened down, the marquee cut to the proper size and installed and it needs a monitor bezel and glass and then it will be finished.

The MAME cabinet also needs the monitor permanently mounted and plexi added in front of it. It also needs the coin door/mechanism reattached to the cabinet. Then I just need to fasten down the loose wiring and then mount the computer inside the cabinet.

The Centipede cabinet made some huge strides in the last day. I cut the new holes in the control panel to accommodate the addition of a joystick and two more buttons. This went really well and the result looks like those controls were always there. I also got the wiring harness mostly finished… enough that I was able to turn the machine on and have it go through the demo loop. I still need to get the controls mounted in the control panel and connected into the harness. The marquee light needs to be wired in and the coin door needs to be reattached. I also need to add a speaker and then fasten the harness and PCB inside the cabinet.

Okay, so there’s still plenty of work, but it will definitely be finished sooner rather than later. I may even have time to work on the 5th cabinet which will actually be used for game consoles rather than regular arcade games.

Posted by Cloudscout on September 9, 2008 at 10:35 pm

Comments (1)

Posted under: Arcade & Coin-Op, Computers & MAME, Creation & Innovation
Tags: Retro

Atari 2700

The Atari 2700, with wireless controllers, never reached the market. An ex-employee of Atari is placing an Atari 2700 prototype on ebay. Current price of $1500 as I type, with over 4 days remaining. Here is the Wikipedia entry for the 2700. This made me laugh…

The 2700 was set for release, and even had ads made for it. Everything seemed ready for the system’s launch, but one problem destroyed its chances. The controllers had a working radius of 1000 ft; this meant the 2700 could affect nearby 2700s, as well as other remote controlled devices, such as garage doors and TVs.