Rolling Console Video Game Table for the Basement Arcade

I made this table on casters with a 36" height surface to match with my basment arcade. Previously the consoles were in the way and didn't fit in.

Cool Store: Mancave Artifacts in Richfield Springs, NY

I happened to pass by this store on my vacation and I pulled over and shot some video. It was closed at the time, but the store is very cool!

How to: Serial Number Plates for the Virtual Boy Arcade Cabinet

Thanks everyone for all the views on the video on Youtube! This video shows how I made the custom serial number and dedication plates for my Virtual Boy Arcade Cabinet.

Files:

• Virtual Boy Serial Number Plate Template (GIMP XCF format)
• Gunpei Dedication Plate Template (GIMP XCF format)
• Download GIMP

Review: Pastime Legends Game Store

Lionel Coin Operated Train Set

I took the kids to see a Train Robbery on the Charlotte Valley Railroad today, and while there they got the chance to play with this:

Man it is sweet!

• Leatherstocking Railway

Swapping the B and C Buttons on a Neo Geo MVS

If you have ever played any of the King of Fighters series of fighting games on a Neo Geo MVS arcade machine you will have noticed the odd button configuration compared to fighting games made by Capcom. The button are configured in this order light punch, light kick, strong punch, strong kick. This is uncomfortable for me, so I made this cable so I could easily swap the B and C buttons.

It is a very simple cable that uses a double pole, double throw toggle switch. to make it work, I soldered a X crossover wires on the outside poles.

Above: how to wire the switch

The switch plugged into the Neo Geo, this can easily be removed with no damage to the game.

Double Rainbow guy Watching Rambo

By now almost everyone has seen the famous "Double Rainbow" video on YouTube. When I watched it I couldn't help but hear "Rambo" everywhere he said "Rainbow". So I took the audio from that video and combined it with video I shot of Rambo playing on two TVs side-by-side. It cracks me up watching the two combined.

• Direct Link to video
• Original Double Rainbow Video

My 3do score!

I was at Richie Rich's Place today and the owner tells me that he has been saving something for me, I glance over the counter and see a 3do! Now, when these things came out in 1993 i didn't have the $699.95 to buy one, but my friend Patrick did.

I remember all the fun we had playing Road Rash, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and most importantly Star Control 2! Star Control 2 is still on of the most awesome games I have ever played. I had the Genesis version (Star Control 1) and the PC version. But the 3do version was the best because of the voice acting that was added. The source code for the 3do version has been released to open source and is called "The Ur-Quan Masters" due to the name being still owned by Atari. It was the most fun on the 3do.

I also scored a Panasonic 19" 15khz color monitor! It will be great for retro game systems!

I wonder this this monitor compares to the Commodore 1702 monitor.

Make your own McRib

Earlier this week I tweeted that I was making my own home-made McRibs and Jerry P. asked me how I did. Check out the video for details.

Progress in so far in restoring my Propcycle

Watch Video

There still is a bunch of things to do, like a new seat cover and padding, but this game is very playable as it is now.

Awesome Music Video for Game Players: Follow Me by Pato Pooh feat. Adam Tensta

If you were playing the NES back in the 80's you will love this video. The production is amazing and very well done!

Just give it a watch!

I bought a Propcycle!

This Saturday I bought a Propcycle Arcade game. It is a awesomely fun game where you pilot a bicycle/plane through a course popping balloons. The best part about this game is that you actually pedal a bike to make the plane fly! There is even a fan that blows on you to simulate the feel of actually flying!

I used to play this in the Jillian's in Albany, but half the time it was missing a pedal. I guess that is what happens when you mix arcade games a alcohol!

I was able to pick this game up for an unbelieveably low price, It actually cost me more to transport it from Waterloo NY to my house. Thanks Jason so much for selling it to me! I will give it a good home!

My Dad making sure all the straps are tight.

The hardest part was getting down the basement stairs and through the 31 inch doorway, but I was able to thanks to my brother Deign and my Dad.

I had to take the whole thing apart to get it down, which isn't a inconveinence since I would have disassembled to clean the it up and check it out. It is only missing a few parts, like a seat cover and some bolts, which I hope my wife will sew me a new cover!

What really suprised me was this this game uses a Mitsubishi 41" CRT Projection TV for its monitor. Most arcade games use a RGB monitor, but in this cause it is just a TV. You can even hook it up and watch TV on it. Here is a picture of it outside of the game cabinet:

So now it sits in pieces, the first thing I want to do is calibrate the projection TV, it is a little out of wack and I am sure it will look much better if I do this first.

• KLOV Entry for Propcycle

Awesome Galaga High Score!

I just had a awesome game of Galaga! My final score was 126,560! And I was on Level 18. That is a far cry from 20 Million of the world record, but it is only 4,330 points from the third highest score according to twin Galaxies! Woo Hoo!! I am going to have to start recording my sessions!

My Galaga, snuggled all nice and tight between my Neo·Geo and my Marvel Vs. Capcom (also runs Street Fighter Alpha)

Happy Birthday Dreamcast!

Ten years ago today was a great day in gaming, as it marked the US release of the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was easily one of the best game consoles ever, but never got proper recognition. This was mostly due to Sony's propaganda about their PS2's capibilities which were never noticable over the Dreamcast, and in some cases games ran worse on the Playstation. A great example of this is was the noticable jaggies in the PS2's anti-alias. The Dreamcast used 2x full screen anti-alias and looked great right from the begining. It took over a year for PS2 developers to fix the issue on the PS2.

Another great thing about the Dreamcast was that is was the same as the Sega Namoi Arcade Hardware, with just less memory. This allowed all the great arcade games that ran on the Namoi to run the the Dreamcast arcade perfect. A great example of this is Capcom Vs SNK and Guilty Gear.

The Dreamcast holds up awesome even today, where the rest of the consoles from it's generation display poorly on a HD TV. Just hook your Dreamcast up via VGA and it looks awesome!

My Dreamcast connected to my HD TV via the vga cable, looks awesome!

With camera flash:

Without camera flash:

My friend Matt who worked at the Babbages in Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, NY where I bought my Dreamcast posted photos from launch day, I am not in them, but it sure brings back the memories (tear).

Cutting Plexiglass Control Panel Overlay

My Marvel Vs. Capcom I bought has a plexiglass overlay over the control panel graphics. The original had spider cracks around the screws, scratches and cigarette burns.

I couldn't let the control panel couldn't stay like that so I went about replacing the plexi overlay.

The plexi had 2 different sized large holes for the buttons and the joystick. I have I have a 1 and 1/8 inch hole saw that I used to cut button holes for other control panels. The holes for this panel were not that size. I wanted it to match the orignal exactly. The soultion came from using a laminate trimmer router bit. Thanks Maxstang, Takeman, timberterror, ManiN, OldTymeToys for the suggestion! I picked one up at my local True Value.

The way it works you drill a 1/4 inch pilot hole for the bit. The bearing rides on the old plexiglass and duplicates the hole of the original in the new plexi. It leaves a nice smooth edge, much nicer then if I had used a holesaw.

Overall it worked great, you just have to be very careful of the height, I cut a little extra in a couple places, but they are covered by the buttons. My router's height slips so I had to keep adjusting.

Here is the bit:

I drilled holes 1/4 inch the same size of the bit. You can see a hole that was routed in this photo:

It is important that the bearing line up with the original plexi:

Here it is installed, looks so much better than the cig burns and spider crackes!

Hard to really see in the photo, here is an angled shot:

Looks much better than the old one:

The only downside of this method is that the bit was $25. But I am sure I will reuse it in the future.

I finally got my Arcade Cabinets!

I haven't talked about this, but I was able to do a raid on a warehouse full of old Arcade Games! I was able to get 3 games at a really good price! My friends Patrick and Mike each got a game as well!

Here is what I picked up:

Galaga

This will work after I clean all of the contacts on the roms, currently the game is garbled.

Neo Geo MVS

This is awesome cause it plays multiple games in cartridge form. It currently has Bust A Move, Samurai Shodown III, and Spinmaster in it! It can hold up to 4 games at once.

Marvel Vs. Capcom

This cabinet suffers from a sucide battery. I will need to get the roms phoenixed to get it working again.

The natural pie: Watermelon

I put wipped cream on a slice of watermelon today. It was awesome! I am sure that Melon-chan would love it.

Super Magic Drive Floppy Drive in a NES

My friend spoonman has a Super Magic Drive that he picked up on ebay. The Super Magic Drive is a game copier that will dump ROMs to a floppy drive or a PC connected via a parallel port. The one he got did not include the floppy drive so he asked me to make an adapter to connect a standard PC floppy to the Super Magic Drive. I put it in a NES case and used a blue LED to make it awesome.

I used the following information he had gotten from a forum years ago. I cannot credit the source:

Any PC 3.5 inch FDD
5V 1A power supply
Case

Making the cable
FFE D-sub 25 pin ------------FDD 34pin

1, 18-25-----------------------ALL ODD pin (GND)
2-------------------------------8 (Index)
3-------------------------------26(TR00)
4-------------------------------28(WP)
5-------------------------------30(RD)
6-------------------------------34(DC)
7-9----------------------------No Connection
10-----------------------------10(DS1)
11-----------------------------16(MOTOR ON 1)
12-----------------------------22(WD)
13-----------------------------24(WE)
14-----------------------------No Connection
15-----------------------------32(HS)
16-----------------------------18(DIR)
17-----------------------------20(STEP)

• Spoonman's Super Magic Drive
• Super Magic Drive - Sonic Retro

Yahoo!! 3rd Season of Shakugan no Shana!

According Dengeki online it was hinted at the Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival. If so I will be quite happy — that show has such great writing, artwork, and voice actors!

• Dengek Online
• Dengeki online (Google translation)

Awesome 404 page on Hasbro's Web Site

I love it when a large corporation can have a sense of humor and Hasbro's 404 (page not found) error page is a great example of it. It defused what could be a frustrating experience. I did find what I was looking for in the end too.

• Hasbro's 404 page