"We have too much stuff!"

The hobbyist / collector’s quandary. Doesn’t really matter what your hobby or collection, whether RC Planes, Collectible Toys, Alabama Football Memorabilia or full-sized arcade and pinball machines, there is never enough space. It also doesn’t matter what part of the storage spectrum you are on. Your collection can be limited to a curio case in the corner of your living room. Like me you could feel fortunate to have a full room-sized converted storage area to work with or even have full warehouses at their disposal. Space always fills up and seems to be the limiting factor for most people I’ve met in this hobby and others.

Last year, I set my arcade & pinball hobby sights on the theme of out with the old, in with the new.
This year, I’m starting the year looking at the concept of Quality over Quantity. I’d like to spend more of the time playing rather than repairing games that I don’t end up keeping for more than 6 months.

After taking down Christmas decorations, I felt the need to work off some of the night’s alcohol. I spent a portion of New Years Day moving things around in our game room and taking a mental inventory of what will stay and what will go.

RIP, The Dome 2015-2019

The Dome is out.

I built the Dome in 2015. Since that time the primary game I had in mind for it (a single player star wars arcade-style space battle game) was never released. A few games that were epic experiences in the Dome have been removed by their respective software publishers. Still, we found some titles that played well on the curved surface over the years.

It has made people go “Whoa!!”

It gave some folks motion-sickness

It gave some kids (and grown ups) hours of play in a sitting

I even flew a drone from inside it once.. Illegally, I suppose. (shhh…)

One thing was static. It took up a ton of space and it was only played 4 times in 2018. 2 of them by me.

I never was fully satisfied with the “finish” of the cabinet surround that I came up with. Maybe I’ll endeavor a v2 at some point.. VR being cheap and awesome probably challenges the likelihood but you never know..

The home-made cabinet enclosure (that I was never fully satisfied with) cut into pieces and committed to fire..

The formed acryllic dome remains available for free pick up for anyone that might have the need for such a thing.

RIP Dome Cabinet. You gave us 560 hours of playtime while occupying roughly six Donkey Kong’s of real estate. We commit your remains to R'hllor

On a brighter note - Results!

Now this is what I’m left with. The back corner housed four full-sized cabinets in the same space occupied by the Dome and a Pinball. Still have some cleaning to do and a few more games will be leaving (or trading out).

This is what I ended up with after the Dome came out.

Drawing Lots

Looking at the first part of 2018, I already know a few games that won’t make the cut this year.

The Midway Horizontal (Home Use Cabinet)

I know that this game will be listed for sale very soon. I need to adjust the monitor a little and may bullet-proof the cabinet a little but all in all the cabinet is in good condition. I bought it with intention of harvesting the monitor for a cabaret project but I’ve decided to do something else. It’s all there and works.

Roadblasters

Atari RoadBlasters

I’ve only had for a few months but I had bought it considering an Indiana Jones Temple of Doom conversion. After playing IJ on MAME for a bit I don’t think that will be worth the many-dead-bothans necessary to pull off. I’ll play my fill of Roadblasters and it will be for sale within a month for less than what I paid for it.

Hyperspin, Super Mario Donkey Kong Frankenstein

Hyperspin Multi-Console living in a Nintendo Cabinet

When I first picked up this cabinet everything had already been removed and it was headed for a trash heap. The cabinet is in pretty good condition but has a few nicks and gashes in the laminate - especially around the speaker grill slits.

With this Windows 7 / Hyperspin setup, I’ve been running NES, SNES and Sega Genesis emulators. At the time that I put this together RetroPi and Emulation Station weren’t really a thing.

I really like Nintendo Cabinets and this looks to be of a DK Variety. I’m leaning towards putting this back to some sort of JAMMA-based Donkey Kong. More-than-likely running an ArcadeSD PCB and one of my non-Nintendo spare 19” CRT’s. I would also consider selling or trading it for other classic-era arcades.

Any Arcade Purchases on the Horizon?

Moving The Dome out of the room does free up some space but I’m not in a big hurry to fill it up. I’d still like to find a MsPac Cabaret and I’m always a sucker for a nice condition Nintendo-anything. (DK, Popeye, etc)

Any Pinballs on the Chopping Block?

I’m still very happy with Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars and of course, Indiana Jones. I’ve toyed with the idea of trading or selling STTNG or TOTAN but not definitely. I don’t play either of them as much as I’d like but when I do - I still enjoy both pins. I’ve historically not wanted to own any more than 6 pins at a given time. Still, I have a wandering eye so anything is possible, I suppose.

My short list of “interesting” pinballs is:

Lord of the Rings
Simpsons Pinball Party
Tron
Star Trek (LE Stern)
Metallica
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Monster Bash (Original)
Cactus Canyon

I’m not feeling compelled to action towards any of these, at the moment but we’ll see how the year goes, more to come!

Seven Days in Sin City

For the last couple of years, I’ve made the trip out to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving to take part in Amazon AWS re:Invent. Last year’s trip chronicle can be found here: http://arcadeshenanigans.com/blog/2017/12/2/vegas-arcade-y-goodness-at-amazon-aws-reinvent?rq=vegas

AWS is Amazon’s technology and web-services division. Before Microsoft pushed the branding of “Cloud” into the collective conscience with Microsoft Azure, AWS was already there and already disrupting the industry in creative ways. The over-simplified Genesis story of AWS was that Amazon built highly scalable and resilient web-services platforms to serve Amazon’s growing needs. Someone on Andy Jassy’s team emoted: “Hey, I’ll bet we could see this stuff.” and presto-change-o, Amazon Web Services was formed.

In 2018, Amazon Web Services had around $26 billion in revenue and have a profit margin 5x larger than Amazon Retail in North America. AWS averaged 28% operating profit margin while AWS North American Retail averaged 5.1%.

All this to say, AWS is kind of a big deal and this annual conference is pretty massive. It takes up the majority of the Las Vegas strip.

This means lots of walking :)

But what does this have to do with Arcades and Gaming? Re-Invent, knowing their nerd audience tends to work gamer references into the curriculum.
Last year, the certification materials were based on the theme of an 8-bit adventure. This year, a Pac-Man reference during a keynote discussion about Machine Learning advances.

re:Play Party

The end of the work-week feature the re:Play party. Three football-field sized venues, this year erected on the Festival Grounds.

Building One is the Club Tent, featuring DJ acts, a respectable collection of classic arcades. Skrillex was the headline act.

New York, New York

Exploring Vegas after the conference, I always try to drop in the Arcade at New York, New York. Here you find most of the recent Stern releases. The machines are well maintained and there is never a line to play.

Pinball Hall of Fame

The Pinball Hall of Fame is a $12 Uber trip from hotels on the strip. Rumor has it that it is moving closer to the strip in 2019.

Each time I’ve been to Pinball Hall of Fame on a weeknight it is almost always empty of patrons. There were a few folks running around servicing games, this time.

The parking lot of Pinball Hall of Fame. It was a ghost-town.

A Gamer’s Paradise

Next door to Pinball Hall of Fame (in an adjoining parking lot) is a non-chain classic gaming store.

The store has arcades and pinballs in the back (for sale at typical retail markup) and a vast collection of classic console gaming items at a fair price. I picked up an Atari 2600 and had it shipped home.

Home Sweet Home

I’m not much of gambler and 7 days is really too long, especially around The Holidays. I was very-glad for the flight home and the quiet sanity of Alabama. :)

Fall 2018 Game List

Sometimes, in this hobby you get to a point where you think: "Okay, now I'm done."  But, you seldom really are :)

That said, I think my gameroom titles are more-than-likely locked in for the remainder of 2018, with one potential exception.

Youtube rejected my first recording of this b/c of background music so I reshot it pretty quickly without voiceover and turned down the gameroom music.

The Arcades

Tron

My Tron has some of the usual lower particle board damage but isn't bad. The Artwork and Marquee are pretty good but not perfect. Let's call it authentic battle-damage. :) Picked it up from a Pawn shop in Saraland thinks to a heads up from fellow collector-friend, Mike.

Tapper

Owning a 3400 in 1 Games Family Multi-Cade I noticed my wife always played Tapper on it. Took awhile to find this one and a little work to get it to this point. Reproduction CPO, powder coated cup holders. Monitor issues galore... I eventually found an overpriced 19" Vision Pro CRT that works well in it with original mounting and wiring. It has the high score save kit & switching power supply on a factory harness.

Nintendo Hyperspin

A couple years ago I came by this empty cabinet while it was on its way to the dump. No monitor, power supply or anything. I put Super Mario Artwork on it and a PC running Hyperspin. Recently I realized by the serial number on the cabinet that this was, at some point a Donkey Kong. I’m planning on do a conversion back to DK on this cabinet soon.

Star Wars

Many Bothan's died to bring this arcade to my game room. Procured from Michael @ Automated Services / pinballs.com. I parted with a Star Wars Trilogy stand up to make room for it, first part of 2018. I fixed the marquee light and worked out some cabinet swell. It has some typical wood-hardener-repairs on the cabinet bottom. It has a Wells 6100, Empire Strikes Back kit as well. I replaced a damaged AVG chip with a modern remade AVG chip, recapped the power supply and fixed some sound-issues to get it to this point.

Q*Bert

This is the Arcadeshop remake Q*Bert Cabinet running the Mylstar FPGA boardset. Modern switching power supply and this machine and recently mounted a NIB 19" CRT w/ a custom-built chassis. The knocker works too! Fun game.

Robotron

Original Robotron cabinet with a late series Wells 19" CRT. I believe it was an ArcadeShop machine back when they had CRT's available. A number of board issues, so it is currently running the FPGA multi-Williams board and direct booting to Robotron. The multi-Williams control panel is pictured here but it also has a Robotron Control panel that appears to have been adapted from a Bubbles. Original Wico sticks on the Robotron Panel, Groovy Game Gear leaf switch sticks on this control panel. The original boards are stashed away safely for "one-day-maybe" troubleshooting and repair.

The Mutt

After a few failed attempts at acquiring some cabarets, this happened. It started as a joke, re: "Hey here's this thing, it's a piece of junk anyway and you won't owe it anything, just have fun with it." Typically found for $100 or less, the Konami 12 in 1 is my RPi3 MAME cabinet for discovery and play of vertically oriented arcades. The 15" VGA monitor and small cabinet footprint paired with the RaspberryJAMMA / ArPiCade setup are going to make it a pretty versatile little game that isn't taking up a ton of space. The Attract-Mode, Raspberry Pi-based Multi-MAME boot image is ridiculously customizable if you are comfortable with linux command-line and bash scripts. Converting it to JAMMA and using VGA to CGA adaptor, the front hatch access will make it a convenient test bench for JAMMA games. Currently working on building a different control panel with less-crappy stick and switches. I'd kinda like to find the Midway 12 in 1, equivalent horizontal cabinet now...

The Cocktail

The first arcade I ever bought.. Picked it up from a central-Florida area arcade repurposing business. I overpaid and it arrived smell like Geritol and discount Wal-mart paint. Featuring a 60 in 1 , wrong controls and a sketchy slot machine monitor barely hanging onto a rebuilt top. Sketchy power supply, dead bugs and rusted-through leg levelers rounded out this $1050 Craigslist find. I didn't know any better. Custom cut glass, new control panels, new controls, new wiring harness, new power supply and running ArcadeSD, this arcade gets more play than any other in the room.

Multi Mortal Kombat

No side art on the cabinet so I'm not sure what it was originally but the inside stickers and serial numbers all match a MK4. Added IL sticks and fresh buttons. Still needs some T-molding and a little cabinet love. I added Mortal Kombat 1, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate to Mortal Kombat 4 via a JAMMA switcher and a vertical rack. It also has a Pandora's box on a spare JAMMA Channel for exploration of horizontal arcades. This winter, I'm planning to add two auxillary LCD panels to the marquee and a deep-learning enabled camera to provide glanceable real time moves-and-fatalities to each player based on their current game and character choice.

Mario Kart Arcade GP 2

Hands down my most expensive and time consuming arcade-effort has been in the acquisition, repair and maintenance of these two Mario Kart Arcade GP machines. Both machines are running HAPP LCDs in order to get compatibility with the new version running in the game, Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. 4 Triforce Main PC's, 4 cameras and two force feedback controllers later, they run and stand out as my kids' favorite. The problem areas are the wheel control loom being pinched by a cam in the steering column (item button not lit), camera failures in POE power transmission and force feedback controller failures (usually relays) related to walk-aways during a game and the carts vibrating themselves down the track at default speed.

The Dome

The Dome is my custom-built Star Wars Battle Pod wanna-be. Its strengths are racing games, flight sims, space games. Its weaknesses are First/Third Person shooters and sheer size. Currently running w/ a PS3, xBox 360 and Wii U which all exhibited a good selection of titles for this format. I've also used it as a mixed experience sit-down VR booth with a PS4. Future enhancements to this would be to acquire a professional quality planetarium optic for direct projection or upgraded first-surface lab-grade mirror for improved reflected projection. However, this is currently the only Arcade game that I consider "for sale" and even then only because of its size. If I sell the dome, it opens up some rearrange opportunities in the game room.

The Pinballs

Indiana Jones

The longest lasting Pinball in my collection, Indy is still my favorite pinball. An upgraded player's quality game, it has custom golden-vein, relic-inspired powder-coated metals. It is running a customized Pinsound orchestration to bring John Williams iconic sound to the gameplay experience but still nods to the original mix quite well. The playfield is pretty good and the plastics look great. It has OCD LED on the controlled lamps and I recently went back to incandescents in the GI, trying to add the warm-fire-glow back to the game. The side art has alot of fade and a few gashes. Instead of cabinet decal, I'd like to find a mural artist to brighten the colors back but keep the original elements in-tact.

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Low production numbers and not being part of the current projected CG Remake roadmap seems to make this a hard pin to find. Having a designer who was nearly run out of pinball and being the free table offered in Pinball Arcade probably didn't hurt, either. Scarcity and such. Acquired from Big Bob in Atlanta, by far this game came to me in the nicest condition of any game I've ever bought. The Mike Chestnut-gold plating on the rails has a few wear marks but not enough to make me want to undo the legend's work. I added OCD LED and GI LED. It isn't as purple and blue as it appears in the photo. Color Changing LEDs in the BAZAAR inserts are one of my favorite additions to this game.

Attack from Mars

One of the byproducts of the CG Remakes is that games that were once astronomically priced can now be in the cloud-city price range, instead. This is a player's quality game with alot of additions and repairs. It came missing the strobe electronics and with various issues in the saucer area. New ramps, upgraded strobe board, reworked the power driver board, fixed a few careless grounds and it was back in business. Added chrome-plated metals from Pinball Plating, OCD LED board on the controlled lamps and Convolux protectors for extra pop. A few wear spots with sloppy mylar work left to address on the playfield but nothing major.

Star Trek: The Next Outlane

Second time around with this title.. Bought one and a sold it to get Stern's Star Trek. Eventually I came back to STTNG through a convoluted trade of my Ghostbusters. The cabinet is really nice with nearly no fade and the playfield cleaned up very well, shows minimum wear. It came with a RD MPU board and I'm still looking for an original WPC-95 MPU to swap back in because of some (very) subtle differences.

Scared Stiff

Another title that I've previously owned and came back around to. Limited production numbers and the hard life of living in a bar, increasingly make this title hard to find for a decent price. An abundance of new pinball, rumors of a future Elvira themed game and a somewhat shallow gameplay dynamic helped to bring this game into my price range. A pretty nice player's quality game, it was at a pinball clubhouse & weed dispensary in the Rhode Island area. The power driver board has some interesting hacks and the left portion of the cabinet has a substantial fade in the Red accents. I'm a little young to have been a consumer of Elvira's TV shenanigans but I really appreciate that this is an all-around fun game and in my opinion the all-around winner for best Halloween theme. Just the right amount of dime-store knock-off Boris Karloff and playfully suggestive callouts mashed with classic 90's feeling generic halloween music make for an excellent sound design. The shots have excellent flow and a nice balance of control versus random bounce. My favorite edition to the pin is the MindOrbits color changing shooter knob and the custom bony-beast lighting.

Medieval Madness

For a couple of years I've let myself get talked out of buying this pin. The excuses ranged from the high average cost to the shot-map similarity with AFM and MB. This summer CG ran another batch of remakes for this title and they started showing up in distributor inventory. Typically, whenever distributor inventory stacks up on a re-make you can temporarily find an original for less-than MSRP of the Remake. Medieval Madness is my newest pin and last new-to-me pinball for 2018. Really enjoying it so far!

SFGE 2018

The Calm before the Fun-Storm.

Southern Fried Game Room Expo continues to be my favorite show each year. It just feels like family :)

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

The Load Up

The thing about our local arcade community is: we have super-solid people. There aren’t a lot of us but we help each other out!

Charlie pulled the trailer and handed the rental and brought up Monopoly, Genesis, Lord of the Rings just to name a few. :) Cody brought Creech (and a super cool special presentation) and I took my Data East Star Wars this time and it got 682 plays over the weekend - and was rock solid :)

Gaming Floor Walk-Through

Family Fun

Cody’s Creech!

You ever seen an environmental Creech? If you were at SFGE 2018, you did. Cody’s CFTBL is gorgeous and mean to play, which makes me love it even more for some reason.

ohm-matched surround sound. yeah!

Vendors!

SFGE always has a good Vendor game and this year was no exception. Plenty of space and plenty of cool offerings from really friendly and enthusiastic vendors.

As always, Marco Specialties brought their A-Game with this epic pyramid of new Pinball. Show specials, parts, shirts & Swag - a little bit of everything and a whole lot of NIB Pinball to flip.

Flip N Out Pinball has been a solid supporter of SFGE every year that I’ve attended. They bring some of the harder to find Premium titles and sometimes you’ll find industry-folks in their show space. They brought the latest from Jersey Jack Pinball, Chicago Gaming / Planetary Pinball & American Pinball. Also, Escalera’s are awesome.

Hard to Find Titles

I was able to get 2 balls in on JJP POTC but unfortunately the game kept breaking down every time I tried to play it. I took it as a personal rejection, not a quality issue w/ the pin. Maybe it just didn’t like me - seems like others really enjoyed it!

Speaking of Rum…

Seeing my old POTC on the show floor was a little bit like seeing an ex-girlfriend happy with her new beau. Probably shouldn’t have sold this game but at least it went to a solid dude who appreciates it!

KingPin

Mark Ritchie’s KingPin was provided on the floor by Circus Maximus for us to flip. They were selling art, toppers & Swag to help fund the project. I’m a huge fan of MR games, this one shot great!

Star Wars LE

Finally got a chance to play Star Wars LE and they had the sound cranked all of the way up, which was nice. :) I liked it.

Games!

Did I mention there are alot of games? Like.. over 300 or so… this becomes the largest Arcade in Georgia and probably the largest functional arcade in the Southeast for the weekend.

Charity!

Project Pinball is an excellent charity, run by an awesome group of people.

Pinvasion!

Pinvasion V really stands out as a next-level pinball tournament. This year it was moved off into a different portion of the hotel, which seemed to work really well. This is always a super-well-organized and highly attended tournament.

This year, my daughter really wanted to try her hand at some competitive pinball. She was already IFPA listed from a previous tournament and was feeling the competitive itch.

Ultimately, in order to (really) compete in the tournament takes a level of dedication and focus that we lacked this year but she still had a great time.

Shenanigans!

We were… on the other hand, dedicated and focused in taking part in some Shenanigans. Jena’s inflatable T-Rex is always a hit. :)

BRRAAAAIIIINNNNSS! (No, really - brains!) Cody is an incredible player and wealth of pinball and arcade knowledge from rules and play to anything repair related.

If you stand still long enough, Billy might sign you.

Personalities & Industry Celebs

This was the year I developed a crush on Cabarets. Tried to buy this one, actually but it was some sort of relay-phone dead-drop communication scenario where you left a message under a park bench with your offer and someone randomly scribbled on a piece of toilet paper in the center bathroom stall if your offer was excepted. Err.. something like that. :) Ah, well - sweet game - look forward to finding one!

That’s a Wrap

It is funny how the truck always ends up coming home a little more full than when we arrived. :) Keep an eye on your games, they will multiply before you know it!

After an awesome weekend we were loaded up and headed back to the Gulf Coast with only one casualty. RIP Tubby.

My Full Photo Gallery from 2018 SFGE is here: https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/SFGE-2018/n-LxrDNw/

Robotron in the House

Robotron is one of these games that I've only recently discovered a love for through the recommendation and good-advice of friends.   It is a slightly older title than I would have normally identified with as an arcade-dweller kid but wow - what a fun game! 

After spending some time with it on a friend's MAME setup and on my ArpiCade card I decided that it was the next arcade cabinet for my gameroom.  I recalled having seen one locally in a local basement a few years ago helping a friend pick up a game.  I figured it would already have sold but was surprised to find it was still available.  Not running but still available.

After some light haggling we can to terms and I agreed to buy it.  Another good friend and purveyor of arcade goodness, David - even picked it up for me while servicing the seller's Burgertime.

In condition, the game's technical condition had deteriorated a little since a couple of years ago.  I recall it booted to a memory error back then, these days it didn't boot at all.

The original power supply apparently had some issues (though was thankfully still in the cabinet.) .  This power supply sat atop the coin door. The owner would reach in and power on the game by flipping this PS on and off.   

I'm not really judging whomever did this as a fix, more so I'm just really thankful that these days Arcadeshop, highscoresaves, twisty wrist and others provide viable adapted power supply modernization options that allow you to preserve the original game harness and introduce a switching power supply.

This stuff might not have been around when the tech did the fix or maybe the owner opted for quick-and-easy route, "Just get it going."

At any rate, the original interlock switch and cabinet power switches were all bypassed by this inclusion.

When modernizing a power supply situation, I'm a fan of these Power Supplies (pictured below) that I usually get from Arcadeshop.  They have a pretty handy, well-diagrammed on/off remote wiring capability, which makes them versatile.   If you aren't a purist or working with a modern-or-remade cabinet, you can cut a hole in a cabinet and have it protrude like a PC power supply out the back of a cabinet.   No, of course I didn't do that with Robotron. 

The 4-pin connector gives you a nice ability to wire into an existing cabinet power switch and wiring loop.   I made a couple of connectors and boom the cabinet switch is back in service, as is the safety interlock.  Even though they are more annoying than helpful in most cases..

The boards have some head-scratching black paint overspray. The black paint seems more like rhino-lining material than spray paint but who knows.    Also a fair number of board repairs and trace workarounds on the mainboard.     I spent a few hours troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips before deciding, for now, the original boards are not a priority for me.

There, the game sat.  Pulled out from the line up, parts strewn about everywhere as I tried to work in free moments to continue troubleshooting.   Kids running in and out of the game room, parts everywhere.  As I opened the Nest app one night to set the temperature I saw the B&W footage of the game in the basement and this stirred decision time..

After only a few hours here and there troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips.  I decided for now the original boards are not a priority for me.   Let's just get it playing.. 

I could throw hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours at the original board stack and maybe power supply or I could throw hundreds of dollars and a few hours and do a non-permanent Multi-Williams conversion and have not only Robotron but Joust and Defender and Stargate and others..

In what is probably equal parts of impatience and curiosity, justified-after-the-fact: I ordered a bunch of stuff from ArcadeShop.  I didn't want to do any permanent conversions to the cabinet or control panel but decided to order a Multi-Williams fPGA board and control panel, related cabling, etc.

I pulled everything, the original wiring harness, control panel, power supply, boards.   I have to admit I felt a little guilty for doing this.   I made no additional cuts to cabling, I cleaned it all as best I could, wrapped it all in paper, bubble and pallet wrap plastic and stowed it in the cabinet.

It still felt wrong..  like removing the games' vital organs or something?  I guess all of these years of watching KLOV threads and watching people get thrashed for multi game conversions has made me sensitive to this.   

I kept.. everything.  Documented it all with photos and my thoughts are that one day, I might decide to put the game back into an original state.  As the KLOV trolls might put it:

You neutered the unicorn but at least you put the balls in a jar, in formaldehyde. 

For now, though - I'm running the Multi-Williams board which is directly booting to Robotron.  

I wanted to get my Joust and Defender on, so I added a Multi-Williams control panel from ArcadeShop as well. 

The assembled Multi Williams control panel with slightly modified IL-stick joysticks and repro ball, sticks and shafts.

Then, I fell down the WICO leaf-switch hole and got stuck on trying to find a way to get WICO's working in the reproduction control panel.

I borrowed the WICO joysticks from the original control panel.  Which, it turns out isn't so original.  Looks like a converted Bubbles control panel. I rebuilt the WICO sticks with new shafts, balls, leaf switches, grommets and washers.  I crimped on new pinch connectors on the old control panel - and stowed it away for later.

The original control panel being wooden and the repro Multi-Williams being metal creates a height issue with the existing sticks.  There isn't a spacer and e-clip configuration that would allow me to get the height in range of being correct, so I came up with something that might be janky but seems to be working well, so far:

I cut square spacers out in the relative shape of the WICO from some 3/4" nominal cabinet-grade scrap leftover from another around-the-house honey-do project.  I shot it with a couple of coats of rattle-can clearcoat to give the dust washer a nice slick surface to glide over.

This gets us a closer-to-accurate height and lets me have dust washers sandwiched between the control panel underside and WICO top.   I used standoff's to mount the blocks and WICO's to the repro control panel's existing screws.

..and... after a night of installing everything and another evening of tweaking.. It lives!  Robotron in the house ya'll.   The direct-boot option on the J-Rok is pretty awesome. The game boots straight to Robotron and if it were not for the control panel you'd never know it was a Multi-Williams board.    P1 Start + P2 Start and you get to the game select menu where you can switch games.   A few games included on the board are vertical but all of the horizontals play very well.

Nathan was the first person to get a High Score recorded on the High Score board for Robotron. It is a hotly contested spot, though with Justin currently in the lead. :)

Gameroom Changes, Concluded (Early 2018)

Former Layout

Using ideas and help from friends, Justin and Nathan (who have a lifetime anytime-no-questions asked pass for all there help moving this stuff around), it was a very good layout.  As you entered the room, Tapper was in front, in the middle, with the arcades flowing off the left side and pins to the right.  

Back left housed my Dome environmental system and back right included a small love seat and and large-ish TV for consoles and movies. 

Pros:

• It presented very well and was logically balanced.

• Pins-in-a-row makes me smile

• Added the loveseat / couch area for movies and consoles

• Good visibility to the TV from most of the room

• Open layout = good airflow

Cons:

• Pins in a row, make for crowded multiplayer games

• Arcades often ignored

• Have to pull pins out to work on them

• Mortal Kombat in the Middle of the room, is big

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working Concept and Bad Math

The new concept was to intersperse the pinball machines alongside arcades.  

By this, hoping to achieve these benefits:

• Pinball machines are easier to work on.

• Multiplayer games are less crowded

• Arcades get more play

• Better "themed zone" potential around isolated pinballs

I measured the room and equated lines to linear feet.  Still, somehow I managed to misjudge the size of the Mario Kart cabs and where I thought I could squeeze an extra pin (left side of the page above) - near the mini-split AC unit - wasn't happening. 

As you enter the room, I put STTNG and Tron together, followed by Mario Kart(s) and AFM.  Cocktail in the center.  Made for interesting theming opportunities for posters and "stuff" around STTNG and lets me see more of the STTNG side art, which is cool.

On the right side, Indy, the Mario hyperspin, Multi-Kombat and TOTAN on the wall.

On the center / right, Q*Bert, Donkey Balls, Tapper and an enlarged seating area for TV / Console / Gaming in the back.  More comfy couch from the clearance back-room of Ashley Furniture FTW.

The back left houses AFM, Atari Star Wars (yes, I fixed the marquee light :) ), the Dome tucked behind it and DESW  alongside the dome.

Early IMpressions

My early impressions are: I like it.  But we will see when the newness wears off.  I will say, the practicality of being able to more easily work on the pins (without pulling them out of the row) seems to be encouraging me to give them the maintenance attention they need more readily / without feeling like a total chore. 

The downside is, you sort of loose that wow-factor of the line ups of games and pins.   One of the first visitors to the room noted, "you need more pinball."   It was tongue-in-cheek but having the games spread out does make it seem like "less pinball."  Since I'm continually just-as-interested in arcadeyness as pinball, I think the room fits my bipolar (and scattered) approach to the hobby... Kinda meta.. 

At any rate, I shared out the room as it was a mess and in transition and thought you might enjoy to see the progress in a little over a month since that video.  Thanks for checking in on my craziness!

Vegas Arcade-y Goodness and Amazon (AWS) Re:Invent

In late-fall / early winter every year, Amazon hosts 50,000 plus developers, systems, dev-ops professionals and technology decision makers for AWS: Reinvent.  AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the arm of Amazon that sells platform and technology services to businesses looking to use Amazon's cloud infrastructure for app, web app and online service delivery.   Each year, Amazon adds over a hundred pr....  vertical markets ... technical debt reduction .... scalable solutio......[snore]  ZZzzzzzzZzzzz   Zzzzz ZzzZzz.  

Still Awake?

I've been to this conference a few times.   Vegas is an expensive town and I'm not much of a gambler but each time I've been I've tried to build in some arcade and pinball discovery in the afternoons and evenings, when off the clock, so to speak.  Although this year, the arcade and classic gaming motif was felt more in the AWS Event itself than previous years. 

Re-Invent

AWS: Reinvent is massive, in terms of scale.  The conference lasts all week and more-or-less subsumes the Vegas strip.   There are two keynotes in the week, the primary keynote venue houses probably around 10,000 people and there are overflow viewing areas at each participating major resort that will hold about half that, each.

As an engineer that has worked for numerous start-up sized companies, I can say that I'm largely pretty cynical about the exhibitor floors of these shows.    I worked for a company years ago that had a fully stocked kitchen of snacks and goodies (soda, energy drinks, sugary pastries and other goodies) and an even more stocked room full of conference swag (pedometers, shirts, hats, mouse pads, gadget-du jour, which these days would take the forms of drones, Nintendo Switches or iPads. That same company, couldn't always make payroll in regards to the engineering staff and contractors...   

But, I digress.  Hopefully these guys have their houses in order. :)

Bo-bo Pac-man

One vendor went so far as to build demos of their product into arcade cabinets and port a version of Pacman over on a few of the cabinets.  "Cloud Crunch" - to exhibit all of the security goodness they could bring to your cloud infrastructure.

(I guess, I really still don't fully know what they actually *do* over at CTP.)

Notice they even went with Arcadey - Family Fun Center styled carpet. (above)

The controls on the arcade cabinet themselves were pretty crappy (below) - I think they were loose mounted in the cabinet.

Their leaderboard was used to control the output of swag.  I only played once but held first place for the better part of the day with my freshman effort.  For my efforts, a pretty decent Patagonia pull-over.

PHOF 

Those hoping this acronym is a reference to the venerable David Hasselhoff will be disappointed but maybe otherwise delighted to learn it is the Pinball Hall of Fame, aka The Las Vegas Pinball Museum.

I walked through the PHOF with my phone on a facebook live broadcast.   Unfortunately the iOS version of the facebook app ignored my preference to save the 4k version to my camera roll, so I'm stuck with this version, which was downloaded from Facebook after the fact.

Sadly, these classic EMs and early Solid States were not getting much play, as is the case every time I've been to the PHOF.   I wish I had time to come and just work my way down these rows and learn to appreciate the bits of character that each of these machines have.

Mostly pins (of all eras) but some arcades on the backwall, too.  

PHOF has an excellent range of eras represented in their lineup from modern LCD games, through B/W DMD games and back to EM Classics.   They were all reasonably well maintained and along the back of the building, an employee worked on an STTNG while listening to an audiobook.    There were very few people in the place and there almost never is when I go in the Winter months.   There was one etiquette-challenged older gent that was playing more than one game at a time and draping his jacket over 1-2 nearby games not in play and challenged me over recording the video walkthrough.   I offered to play him a round and he chose the new Star Wars.  I won and we had a fun conversation about pinball during the game.

For some strange reason, the most interesting machine at PHOF to me is this awesome popcorn vending machine. I want one!    

Have Quarters, Will Uber

Fremont Arcade

Last year, when I was on my way out from Vegas - waiting on my flight, I remember reading about Fremont Arcade on Pinside.  I was bummed because the OP of that post had posted all sorts of promising pictures of the line up at these neat arcade down in Old Vegas / Fremont.  

This year I made it a point to go check it out.   

Unfortunately, instead of a promising line up of pins, I found the pretty typical modern card-based almost-redemption arcade with the exception of the 5 Stern games pictured here.

The pins were all well-maintained but the volume was down and even in the empty arcade you couldn't hear them.

The Big Apple Arcade @ New York, New York

I ventured over to Big Apple Arcade located inside of the New York, New York Casino.

Here, I was impressed and spent more of my arcade dollars than probably at an other location in Vegas.  A nice layout of modern pins, each properly set up and well-maintained..    

Speaking of Star Wars, it was nice to get the opportunity to spend more time with an updated Star Wars Battle Pod.    Even though I built a redneck equivalent, I sure do enjoy this game.

On my way out of New York, New York, the Bally logo of a slot machine caught my eye and sort of develops a lump in my throat as to what might have been had Bally stayed in it, making Pinball after 2000.

Zero Latency VR at MGM 

In MGM, they've set up a pretty sweet full-suite VR experience called Zero Latency VR.  It is similar, though probably not quite as good as The Void.  While we were there, the options were a Halo-styled space combat sim and a Zombie battle style sim.

We opted for the space-sim, since the zombie genre is well covered in the PS4 and Vive VR offerings.  The gameplay last about 1/2 hour (for about $50/person).   The resolution of the experience wasn't 4k but the effect was quite good.   On more than one occasion I found myself reaching for a virtual-only cover (a crate) in the environment, to hoist over and shoot at the alien boss.   Therein lay the hack.  You can clip in the environment by nestling yourself inside parts of the environment. :) 

I could see a version of this with practical trip-hazards that are represented in 3D space, virtually - as being pretty awesome.   Me, I'm glad I got to play it and I'm definitely looking forward to trying out other full-suit VR experiences. 

Closing Night, the AWS: Reinvent, Re:Play Party

The last night of AWS: ReInvent, Amazon sets up three football-field-length structures in the parking lot of The Linq and throws one hell of a nerd party.  The middle structure had a bad with EDM, House type coding music blaring to an impressive laser light show.  The right-most structure included physical activities, like nerf bow-and-arrow in paintball gear - type battles, adult bouncy castles, etc.  The left-most structure was packed full of classic arcades, a dome VR experience, foosball, airhockey and all sorts of gaming awesomeness.   

Quick, shaky cam walk through to show the retro gaming goodness going on in one of the structures.

Of the classic arcades, some impressive collector titles were on the floor

The center structure of the three structure layout included a stage, lightshow, food, booze and tunes..

I thought the lighting assembly was impressive, especially considering this was a temporary structure!

By the end of the week, it was time to relax atop the balcony at Twin Peaks and bid Las Vegas farewell.   I attended 3 to 5 sessions each day and filled the evenings as best I could think to with arcadey and pinball fun, not the most risqué activities available in Vegas but these are the ones that interested my inner arcade nerd. :)

Halloween 2017

What do you get when you take a 5.1 Outdoor movie experience, add in 98 glow ice cubes, 120 glow sticks, a makeshift haunted house, a table full of tasty treats and enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma?    Halloween 2017 at our house. :)

Here's a clip from our Nest cams from the block party & awkwardly appropriate halloween-era music track that captures the meta-narrative and sea of neighbors & friends that came out to enjoy some Arcade and Pinball fun.