Arcade Miscellaneous

Arcade Twitter added!

Posted March 13, 2008

Never heard of Twitter? You are not alone, many people haven’t heard of this Web 2.0 idea. What is it? Let me try to explain in my own words.

Rotheblog Arcade Twitter Account

Twitter is a website where you can update your status with thoughts, ideas, or information. The nanoposts are supposed to be within 140 characters, working well for many services including RSS, XML, and SMS for phones. The main problem with the service is finding a true usefulness to justify spending time writing messages.

The main reason I have chosen to use Twitter is because it is perfect for sharing information on my blog that isn’t noteworthy enough to have a whole post about. I don’t have to go into WordPress and make a new post, I just write a short note integrated from my email and my Twitter status updates.

I have determined that Twitter is perfect for sharing and explaining links to cool arcade related sites that may or may not have been shared all over the forums, or some piece of information I found but don’t plan on developing a post about. (Of course, most of these links are also included in my Diigo links on the “links” button above, and they rotate constantly as I may bookmark about 20 websites a day, depending on how much research I am doing.)

I also like Twitter because by incorporating it into my blog, my blog always has that “fresh” information feel. It let’s people know what I am up to, and fosters that much more of a community.

One of the downsides right now is who else even uses Twitter? It would be cool to follow some other people and what they are doing, but I don’t have that many geeky friends. Among that set of friends, my perception is that if they don’t see a monetary purpose in using Twitter, why use it? I agree totally, so I need to try to find other serious bloggers and online entrepreneurs that find Twitter useful, and that may mean finding a whole new group of friends. That would be swell and rad all at once.

Check out my Twitter’s in the sidebar, see what I am up to, and check out a ton of cool arcade related links. This Twitter Tools plugin by Alex King should compile my daily twitter’s into a WordPress post where users can comment on the links. But I haven’t seen how that works yet. Should be cool.

Are any of my readers using Twitter?

I don’t like the fact that there is no “edit” feature, but maybe that will be added in later. What do you like or dislike about the service? What do you use it for?

Gaming Console Icons for Mame

Posted February 27, 2008

One of the most time consuming aspects of building any Mame machine is collecting all of the “necessary” files. A short list of the digital files would include working game roms, bezels, cabinet photos, marquees and of course character art. The coolest Mame machines have all of the classic arcade artwork including icons of the different gaming console systems that will be used in the menus for selecting different emulators.

I came across a topic on the Arcade Controls forums (BYOAC) where a user had a collection of these icons that he had been editing on an on-going basis. I thought I would download the zip and take a gander at what I expected to be amateurish looking graphics. I was pleasantly surprised, check out a few of the icons of the consoles below;

I don’t know where the console images came from, maybe they came from an include with a front end or maybe they were generated from photos. Source doesn’t matter, there are a ton of console icons in this archive and here is the complete list of the gaming systems. All of the icons are at a fair resolution with transparent backgrounds (PNG files), great for use in Mame or even in a design for a website about video game news. You can download the icon collection here.

Amiga CD32
Atari 2600 Jr.
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Atari 7800
Atari Jaguar
Atari Jaguar CD
Atari Lynx
FM Towns Marty
NEC PCFX
NEC TurboDuo
NEC TurboGrafx CD
Nintendo DS
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Nintendo Game Boy Color
Nintendo Game Boy
Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo N64
Nintendo NES3
Nintendo SNES2
Panasonic 3DO
Philips CDi 450
Sega CD
Sega CDX
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Game Gear
Sega Master System II
Sega MegaDrive II
Sega Saturn
SNK Neo-Geo CDZ
SNK Neo-Geo
Sony PS2
Sony PSone

Wanna see the twins?

Posted February 20, 2008

Common question on the set of any Brad Pitt movie I am sure, but in this case, my two Vision Pro monitors arrived from Happ on Monday.

I got two monitors in the mail on Monday (one’s for a friend). Where’s the original arcade related information you ask? This post is specifically for any other collectors here in Indianapolis, Indiana to gauge how much shipping and tax would be to buy your very own Happ 19″ Vision Pro while they are still on sale this month. It isn’t a knock ’em sock ’em robots deal, but it’s better than usual. Here’s the breakdown shipped to 46227.

Flat Monitor Cost – $270
Shipping – $36.99
Tax – $18.42

Oh, and I should mention I put in my order on Friday, and my monitors shipped that afternoon and arrived at my home residence on Monday afternoon! Granted, I believe Happ has a distribution center in Chicago, but I was very happy with the expediency and thrilled the monitors arrived free of damage.

Video tutorials on discharging monitors and “doing” a cap kit

Posted February 18, 2008

A mere year and a half ago doing a “Cap Kit” stirred a sense of fear of the unknown within me, as well as a feeling of inadequacy that made me feel like a wuse arcade collecting poser too afraid to dive head first into working with electronics.

I searched online for a “how-to”, or a tutorial that would get me a solid definition and visually show me how to perform a “cap kit” . Heck, it took me a week or so just to figure out that cap = capacitor, I was really starting from ground zero, or ground “beisbol” as Warren would say.

Since that time, I have changed a fair amount, not a ton, of capacitors on monitor chassis’s in hopes of fixing minor display glitches in my games. But I still wish I would have had some sort of photo collage or video tutorial showing me how a cap kit was done, and done right.

Last night, I came across these tutorials posted on the BYOAC forums. There are three YouTube videos, two on performing a “cap kit”, and one on discharging a monitor. Two of the well done starter videos were put together by a KLOV member “p1899m”. I wish I would have had these when I started. (more…)

Sinistar in Joystik Magazine 1983

Posted February 15, 2008

Note: Some of the following content is directly from Xmission. As best I can tell, Xmission were the original online publishers of this content, and you can find all of what I have here at the above address. Also, a short nod to Joystik magazine who originally published the arcade content in paper form.

I have visited a lot of arcade sites since I started collecting, and it can be challenging to keep them all straight. Xmission is a great arcade website, although not that user friendly, for a wealth of old arcade information and resources.

It wasn’t until today that I realized that Xmission has a section on their website for scanned pdf and jpg images of arcade related books, magazine and literature.

One such magazine was “Joystik” magazine, published in the 80’s, that focused on classic arcades, reviews, strategies, etc. etc. Most of the articles talk about the arcade games as they were still new, or newly released, from Pac-man and Tempest to Pengo and Robotron. Here are just a couple of the covers;

I love the artwork, they did the best with the clunky printing technology available in the early 80’s. Especially some of the inside magazine graphics of Pengo (upper right cover) are strange Monty Python-esqe direct translation instead of interpretive illustrations of the game characters.

I decided to read through an article on Williams Sinistar that was released in the Joystik magazine back in September of 1983 (Sinistar Cover above). At the time it was released, I may have started to read, but judging by my mental capacity today, I doubt it. I would have been almost four years old when it was published. Sinistar had just been tested at the AMOA in Chicago in 1982 and got mixed reviews from players and critics.

I love Sinistar but would not have heard of it if it wasn’t for the beauty of classic arcade game collections for the modern systems, in this case – Playstation. I got hooked on Sinistar in the Williams collection, but have never actually played it in person as an Upright Machine. I would love to. I have played Food Fight with the analog joystick, and assume the 7×7 joystick in Sinistar would be a similar feel and make controlling the ship a little bit easier. Surprising as it may seem, opposable thumbs may separate us from monkeys, but they aren’t great for collecting sinibombs.

Either way, I thought the article on Sinistar gameplay, although straightforward, had some interesting tips in it that I will employ. I pieced together the pages with the tips, click on the image below for a larger version. (2 MB+)

Here are the tips I picked up on – Originally written by Doug Mahugh;

Once a Planetoid has absorbed enough energy from your shots, it will being emitting crystals and then continue emitting crystals as long as you keep the total energy of the Planetoid above a certain threshold. there is no limit to the number of crystals that can be mind from a single Planetoid, but the Planetoid can be accidentally destroyed if you fire into it too rapidly; it will simply absorb too much energy and shake itself apart.

If you do recover it, (crystal from a blown up Worker) you’ll receive 200 points, but following a single crystal all around the universe – when you could be mining many more – is definitely a rookie move.

(Referencing strategies to gameplay from design team leader Noah Falstein) Start out by mining crystals like mad. Then, use a bomb to find the Sinistar (drop a bomb and watch which direction it goes).

The idea of chasing down an errant crystal isn’t a great insight, but couple that with the idea that a Planetoid will keep emitting crystals as long as you don’t blow it up and I have a new method of destroying Sinistar. I chased down bombs because I thought there were limited amounts emitted per planetoid. Plus, the idea of dropping a test bomb to discover Sinistar’s location is a good one. I hadn’t researched strategies before now, most collectors who play this game a lot or own a Sinistar probably already know all of this. Heck, some of them may have this issue of Joystik and read it when it was released.

But it was a fun trip back in time for me, and hopefully I will be that much better when I finally do play Williams Sinistar in person.

Any of my readers have any other great Sinistar gameplay tips that weren’t listed in Joystik?

Stash of arcades in Indianapolis, IN

Posted February 14, 2008

I will post more on this later, but here is a photo of a couple of the arcade games to give you an idea. I wished now I had taken a straight on view of one of the four storage units of games, but I didn’t, so this will have to suffice.

Popeye, Ms. Pac-man Conversion and Super Punch Out

We see a crappy Ms. Pac-man conversion, a Popeye that is in decent condition, it is missing sideart on the right side, and Super Punch Out, missing the Duck Pull from the control panel and the “Punch Out” sideart is torn up a little on both sides.

There are many other games, about 30 total. I am going to get my stuff together and then post a photo album of about 95 photos of this stash of arcade games here in Indianapolis, IN.

Classic Childhood Photo of Chuck E. Cheese Arcade Room

Posted February 13, 2008

Late November last year I got an awesome surprise. My sister had sent me some 900 scanned slides of photos my parents had taken of our childhood years. The idea was, I was supposed to put the slides in a “slideshow” with music and burn them to a DVD and this would be our Christmas gift to our parents this year. Great idea! They’ll cry for sure:)

However, all of the slides had some level of dust on them so I had to go through and touch up each and every one of them. Knowing how much work that would be, my sister and I went through them one by one to weed out any photos that were just so bad that they weren’t worth including and saving me some touch up time.

I was so excited when I found a photo of me, as a child, on some sort of Merry Go Round in a Chuck E. Cheese (on the left looking worried). In the background you can see a beautifully pink Ms. Pac-man, and some other machine. (I had posted on the forums to find out the identity of the arcade game, and within minutes, another collector identified the blurred machine as a Bosconian.)

Jeff Rothe in Chuck E. Cheese with Ms. Pac-man and Bosconian

“This would make an awesome Rotheblog post!”, I thought. How more original could this be? A vintage arcade photo now digitally preserved. Oh wait, my mom occasionally reads this thing, and the slide present is supposed to be a surprise. If I post this, she’ll wonder how I even got this photo.

So, I waited to post my Chuck E. Cheese arcade photo, and I almost completely forgot about it. Until I rediscovered the Chuck E. Cheese photo today.

Little did I know. As I sat on that frightening molded horsie that someday I would own a Ms. Pac-man machine and yearn for a time when all I had to worry about was whether my sister could actually catch me riding that plastic frog.