It has been a minute! Arcade1UP kind of ran itself into the ground by annually re-releasing slightly nicer cabinets of Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, and later got bought up by Basic Fun, who (checks notes) are doing the same thing? But at least they brought back Outrun?
I – on the other hand – stopped blogging, but kept fiddling with Arcade1UPs. I currently have EIGHT of the damn things, with parts to build one more, so let’s check the predictions I made in 2021…
The Simpsons did come out, but the 2nd game was Simpson Bowling? I passed, but the cab was later found to be easy to mod with more games.
Tempest came out as a decent refresh of the Asteroids/Centipede cabinet. There were some nice after-market mods to make the machine look more authentic, but you could not replace the spinner controller. It also came with a horizontal screen, so vertical games – like Tempest – were shrunken. Passed.
Tron was released, featuring Tron and Discs of Tron, and it was very close to the look of the original arcade cabinet. I bought one, but felt uneasy about the purchase, and later traded it, unopened, for Rampage and Space Invaders. Part of it was the high price, but it also may be due to my left-handedness. Tron is one of the rare classic arcade games that really favors right-handers.
So far, no one has offered a Q*bert cab for sale, but I am currently in the process of making one out of Space Invaders.
Buy Stuff Arcades, who among other things offer both Android and Mini PC upgrade kits for various Arcade1UPs, released their own reproduction Super Sprint cab. It is a thing of beauty, but EXPENSIVE! They have plans to eventually release a two-player Championship Sprint kit for Arcade1UPs, so I will wait and see.
For me, what has made these cabinets a hobby and not just “blowing money on magic beans” has been all the tinkering and customizing you can do with them. There is a whole cottage industry of folks online that will help you add light-up marquees and coin doors, replace vinyl artwork, and add real arcade parts and custom control panels. It can be a rabbit hole within a rabbit hole, but here are some highlights of what I’ve been putting together:
Ms. Pac-man
After adding the new kickplate vinyl I mentioned in my previous post, I replaced the marquee and then installed a 60-in-1 Jamma kit from DIY Retrocade. I tried various replacement control panels with added trackballs, a joystick that could swap between 4-way and 8-way, but nothing seemed quite right. I settled on using the original control panel with the 4-way stick from the kit, added a 2nd button, then limited the game list to 2-way and 4-way games. The icing on the cake was installing a scan line generator.
Xmen vs. Street Fighter
It’s probably overkill, but I eventually reworked the cab into a Street Fighter II Turbo, dropping a MiSTer FPGA inside. Similar to a RetroPie build, most of the assembly went smoothly, but it took me several tries to figure out the right solution to working audio, and then several MORE tries to get the controls to play nice.
Outrun
I started with a few stickers and some better covers for the pedals, then eventually raised the cab up by 6 inches, bolted the pedals in, and added a real JEGS racing seat.
Asteroids
I got the parts used and luckily, Arcade1UP was nice enough to replace the monitor as it was in ROUGH shape. I added some vinyl, a light-up marquee, GRS Spinner, and Atari-style “volcano” buttons. I also redesigned the control panel graphic.
Centipede
Much like Asteroids, I started with adding a light-up marquee, GRS trackball, and Atari-style “volcano” buttons, later swapping in the guts of an 8-in-1 Centipede Partycade. I then changed all the vinyl to Millipede.
Space Invaders
I played around with maybe making it a dual Q*bert/Mad Planets cab before settling on Q*bert, and laid out the control panel myself. It’s looking good, but other that lighting up, it currently does “fuck all”. I will eventually put in a JROK board.
TL;DR don’t be like me! Go outside! 😀
– Ben
Cottage Industry Vendors
https://thearcadegamefactory.com/
https://www.arcadeshop.com/
https://www.buystuffarcades.com/
https://www.diyretroarcade.com/
https://www.escapepodonline.com/
https://focusattack.com/
https://www.jegs.com/
https://www.retro530.com/
https://www.szabosarcades.com/
https://thunderstickstudio.com/
https://www.t-molding.com/