- Joined
- Jan 29, 2004
- Posts
- 20,259
I'm just gonna post pics of setups and projects I've worked on throughout this hobby.
I dont think of myself as a collector, I rather think of myself as a gamer. I love playing the games more than having a huge collection of games I don't play, however my problem lies in liking way too many games and thus I end up with way too much stuff.
I started with my cousin's Atari and then later with their NES but it wasn't until I got my own NES that I got into playing games but it wasn't until Ninja Gaiden and Megaman 2 that I really cared about gathering skills, once I started going to the arcades to play Final Fight, Double Dragon and stuff like that I couldn't get enough. I played Galaga and Pac-Man and all them classics before but I was never so drawn to an arcade until I started playing X-Men, TMNT, R-Type, Raiden and early 90's games, then out of nowhere SFII came out and all hell broke loose.
I was old enough during 1992 to go on my own to the arcade after school, save my allowance and go to town with SFII. Then the clones showed up and I got even more into anything arcade and most of all fighting games with a healty dose of brawlers and a splash of shooters.
My arcade @ home experience started with Neo and Capcom SNES ports, however I always wanted to play at the arcade. When the port for X-Men vs SF came to the PSX I was extremely upset and my eyes were open for the first time at really noticing the difference between ports and the real thing and so that's how I came to learn about imports. I got me a Saturn and imported all them CPS2 ports at the time along with some other arcade ports.
When the Dreamcast came out I got the agetec stick and then my world change 'cause for the first time playing @ home wasn't so bad, this joystick was way ahead of anything I played with before, even the Neo stick paled in comparison with it's ackward arc that left my wrist kinda feeling odd.
When I was inking comics a writer told me about this emulators that played Neo, hegave me a website to go to, a swedish website, it was great! I must off downladed everything under the sun and then the real fun began but it wasn't until I got tired of the PC gamepad that the real deal began; I wanted to buy a real good arcade stick like the dreamcast agetec stick but had no luck and so I went for plan B...build my own! That's when it all changed...
First stick I ever made, plenty of mistakes but at the time I thoguht it was the amazing! Well, at least I got a little better as time went by and ended up building a handfull of them.
Once I got good at building sticks I ran into this at a comic shop and given that Saturn was obsolete I talked the owner into letting me buy it.
Loved this thing! This added so much flare to my game room, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Then a friend told me he was getting an arcade cabinet for christmass, I was in awe that I didn't think of it sooner, if this is something attainable why in hell wouldn't I have one right? Well, I offer the guy some help with the CP and the cosmetics of the cab, it was a pretty awful looking rampage conversion to a high impact football, the thing was a mess but I already had some previous experience building sticks so I was already familiar with wiring, painting, wood work and so on and this is what it ended up looking like.
Not long after that, same friend decided to get another cab and mount a dreamcast inside of it, I offered help with the CP and marquee art and this is what it ended up looking like.
Not the greatest idea per say but the CP and marquee looked real good and I wired in a XBOX display stereo amp and we had fun with that until he sold it.
Well, now after doing 2 cabs I figured it was time for me to get a cab of my own. I wasn't really sure what to look for, most cabs for sale were in pretty rough shape, most cabs were conversions and I had played enough time at the arcade and had built enough sticks to know what's a good setup, good screen angle and a decent button layout, so I started looking for a Neo cab 'cause at the time I parted with my Neo (AES) and wanted the real deal which I friend hooked me up with a 4 slot board along with 3 classic games.
I ran into this and at first I wasn't sold on it, it looked weird compared to what I owned before but my pal at the time talked me into going for it which I'm glad I listened 'cause once I was done restoring it I truly fell in love with it.
From then on it was an arcade craze.
Of course I restored the CPs completely and added plexiglass to protect the original CPs as they had seen some action.
Then I got a hold of a candy which was difficult as most candy cabs were found in CA and not so much in the east coast but we changed that .
My first candy was a Neo MVU4, loved that cab, it gave me plenty of good times.
I eventually restored the CP like you see there but it played with a worn out CP for a long while.
It was finally the time to see what the deal was with other arcade hardware, I really wasn't familiar with anything other than Neo and so the natural next step for me was CPS2 in the form of a Big Blue wich I helped restore for a friend and then later he sold to me. I was happy with this purchase 'cause all the work was done by yours truly so I knew it was good to go.
Here's a pic of how I get cabs in and out of my old pad's basement which was on a water front so there was very small access to the stairs outside, it was quite the adventure, lucky for me I was obssessed and never felt like it was too much of a hassle but looking at it now it truly was! This was years later after I sold my Big Blue, I still miss it...
With CPS2 I was in heaven, that Big Blue cab saw more action than anything else I ever owned so the natural step was to get a candy which could play CPS2 and what better candy for that than a Q25?! I was part of a group by that took place here, loved that cab!
After that it went even crazier 'cause I kept aqcuiring more and more cabs, I had the space, the money, the time and most importantly the skill to bring these things back to life.
Along with RX we ran into these Ikea stools and chopped them for proper height. Better, cheaper, nicer than anything else I've seen so far. All them taito leather stools are too high, you know your knees are bumping into the CP's bottom, no good!
I dont think of myself as a collector, I rather think of myself as a gamer. I love playing the games more than having a huge collection of games I don't play, however my problem lies in liking way too many games and thus I end up with way too much stuff.
I started with my cousin's Atari and then later with their NES but it wasn't until I got my own NES that I got into playing games but it wasn't until Ninja Gaiden and Megaman 2 that I really cared about gathering skills, once I started going to the arcades to play Final Fight, Double Dragon and stuff like that I couldn't get enough. I played Galaga and Pac-Man and all them classics before but I was never so drawn to an arcade until I started playing X-Men, TMNT, R-Type, Raiden and early 90's games, then out of nowhere SFII came out and all hell broke loose.
I was old enough during 1992 to go on my own to the arcade after school, save my allowance and go to town with SFII. Then the clones showed up and I got even more into anything arcade and most of all fighting games with a healty dose of brawlers and a splash of shooters.
My arcade @ home experience started with Neo and Capcom SNES ports, however I always wanted to play at the arcade. When the port for X-Men vs SF came to the PSX I was extremely upset and my eyes were open for the first time at really noticing the difference between ports and the real thing and so that's how I came to learn about imports. I got me a Saturn and imported all them CPS2 ports at the time along with some other arcade ports.
When the Dreamcast came out I got the agetec stick and then my world change 'cause for the first time playing @ home wasn't so bad, this joystick was way ahead of anything I played with before, even the Neo stick paled in comparison with it's ackward arc that left my wrist kinda feeling odd.
When I was inking comics a writer told me about this emulators that played Neo, hegave me a website to go to, a swedish website, it was great! I must off downladed everything under the sun and then the real fun began but it wasn't until I got tired of the PC gamepad that the real deal began; I wanted to buy a real good arcade stick like the dreamcast agetec stick but had no luck and so I went for plan B...build my own! That's when it all changed...
First stick I ever made, plenty of mistakes but at the time I thoguht it was the amazing! Well, at least I got a little better as time went by and ended up building a handfull of them.
Once I got good at building sticks I ran into this at a comic shop and given that Saturn was obsolete I talked the owner into letting me buy it.
Loved this thing! This added so much flare to my game room, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Then a friend told me he was getting an arcade cabinet for christmass, I was in awe that I didn't think of it sooner, if this is something attainable why in hell wouldn't I have one right? Well, I offer the guy some help with the CP and the cosmetics of the cab, it was a pretty awful looking rampage conversion to a high impact football, the thing was a mess but I already had some previous experience building sticks so I was already familiar with wiring, painting, wood work and so on and this is what it ended up looking like.
Not long after that, same friend decided to get another cab and mount a dreamcast inside of it, I offered help with the CP and marquee art and this is what it ended up looking like.
Not the greatest idea per say but the CP and marquee looked real good and I wired in a XBOX display stereo amp and we had fun with that until he sold it.
Well, now after doing 2 cabs I figured it was time for me to get a cab of my own. I wasn't really sure what to look for, most cabs for sale were in pretty rough shape, most cabs were conversions and I had played enough time at the arcade and had built enough sticks to know what's a good setup, good screen angle and a decent button layout, so I started looking for a Neo cab 'cause at the time I parted with my Neo (AES) and wanted the real deal which I friend hooked me up with a 4 slot board along with 3 classic games.
I ran into this and at first I wasn't sold on it, it looked weird compared to what I owned before but my pal at the time talked me into going for it which I'm glad I listened 'cause once I was done restoring it I truly fell in love with it.
From then on it was an arcade craze.
Of course I restored the CPs completely and added plexiglass to protect the original CPs as they had seen some action.
Then I got a hold of a candy which was difficult as most candy cabs were found in CA and not so much in the east coast but we changed that .
My first candy was a Neo MVU4, loved that cab, it gave me plenty of good times.
I eventually restored the CP like you see there but it played with a worn out CP for a long while.
It was finally the time to see what the deal was with other arcade hardware, I really wasn't familiar with anything other than Neo and so the natural next step for me was CPS2 in the form of a Big Blue wich I helped restore for a friend and then later he sold to me. I was happy with this purchase 'cause all the work was done by yours truly so I knew it was good to go.
Here's a pic of how I get cabs in and out of my old pad's basement which was on a water front so there was very small access to the stairs outside, it was quite the adventure, lucky for me I was obssessed and never felt like it was too much of a hassle but looking at it now it truly was! This was years later after I sold my Big Blue, I still miss it...
With CPS2 I was in heaven, that Big Blue cab saw more action than anything else I ever owned so the natural step was to get a candy which could play CPS2 and what better candy for that than a Q25?! I was part of a group by that took place here, loved that cab!
After that it went even crazier 'cause I kept aqcuiring more and more cabs, I had the space, the money, the time and most importantly the skill to bring these things back to life.
Along with RX we ran into these Ikea stools and chopped them for proper height. Better, cheaper, nicer than anything else I've seen so far. All them taito leather stools are too high, you know your knees are bumping into the CP's bottom, no good!