new guy here

[Arcade_Guy]

whats up everyone?

Noob to the Ohio Reef forums.. i've been browsing around for a while and I guess it's time to formally introduce myself.

Totally new to reefing... Jake convinced me to get into the hobby.

 I have a 55 gallon that's been up and running for about 3 months or so now. Not very stocked yet, but i'm getting there. Expensive hobby for sure!
I'll post up some pics soon....

[lazylivin]

Welcome to the club! Are you a gamer?

[rmstevensiii]

Welcome to the club... you've come to the right place.

[quicksilver]

Welcome and cya latter. You have a good bunch here good luck.

[jeblin]

Welcome to Ohio Reef! There's a lot of information on here regarding everything from Fish and Corals to Car maintenance and Home Theater recommendations

I second the "are you a gamer?" question because of your name arcade_guy....seems like there's a decent amount of us around...including some of us that are into pinball as well...one of my friends has 12-15 original arcade systems (centipede, pac man, asteroids, etc....as well as a Starfire (bonus points if anyone knows the two things Starfire is famous for in the arcade world WITHOUT looking it up  )

Jerry

[Arcade_Guy]

Thanks for the welcoming.

I'm a huge gamer. Lately i'm drawn to arcade mostly, but play about everything.

Couldn't afford a real arcade cab so i built one... Runs MAME, and has other emus too for sega cd, nes, snes, ect ect ect

Ahh centipede. Ask jake about that. I'm a centipede fanatic.
I have a 6th place score for the MAME version of centipede on TwinGalaxies.com.

Pinball is awesome, but tables are even more expensive than arcade cabs. Still cruisin craigs list to snag a cool one cheap...

If anyone wants to jump on some gears 2 or somethin add me on XBL... BrianOf Sparta7

Havent heard of that arcade jerry... i feel ashamed

[Riderc82]

You are at the right place to save money.  Welcome

[MechanicalEngineer]

Welcome!

[lazylivin]

I bought all the controls.....buttons, rollerball, joysticks from hapcontrols about three years ago to build a MAME machine. Still have not got around to it. Even have the 35" monitor. One of these days I will have one, for now I play on my computer with keyboard which is okay for some games. But not for the classic pacman, centipede and asteroids. Love to see a Pic of your MAME system.

[Blown76mav]

Welcome to Ohio Reef.

[jake]

ya I played his machine it is nice. He has like ever game known to man. It is well worth his effort.  I did smoke him in some MK though,but I'm just rubbin it in.

[Arcade_Guy]

You play a cheap Raiden, jake. Very cheap.

Anyways, i almost went the happ controls way and built my own control panel, but i decided to go with xgaming's dual tankstick.. prebuilt and actually a little cheaper than building my own by the time you account for the IPAC converter or whatever it is for keyboard encoding.

If you ever need a hand building the cabinet or whatever just give me a yell. I live for building stuff like that! My next project is a cocktail cabinet....

[jeblin]

I feel dirty now since I just took a "Main Event" cabinet and converted it to a MAME system. Had a 4 player panel prop'd up and a coworker made it for me. Unfortunately, I couldn't do the full complement of buttons certain fighting games need, but it only stops specific fighting games from being played to their fullest. I pulled the monitor out of the cabinet, took a 19" tv out of its shell and mounted it in the frame of the monitor. Used a RADEON video card with TV out so I bypassed all the conversion from VGA into the raw signals for the arcade monitor.



As for Starfire....it was the first game to use a sit-down cockpit and its also the first arcade game to use a HIGH SCORE display for names

[jeblin]

Pinball is awesome, but tables are even more expensive than arcade cabs. Still cruisin craigs list to snag a cool one cheap...

I picked up a bastardized Williams Jubilee/Fun Fest for a good price ($150) awhile ago. Needs new rubber all around (runs about $25 on ebay), but other than that, the field is in nice shape and the back glass is very nice as well. Unfortunately, its bastardized....meaning the top half is of Jubilee and the rest of the game is Fun Fest. The good news is that Fun Fest is definitely more fun to play than Jubilee is so its good the bottom is Fun Fest.

Someone might be able to talk me into selling/trading if interested...it's not doing me any good just sitting there.

 

[jake]

oh hell now its on this kids gonna fill his apartment like a reef arcade. $3 to get in

[Arcade_Guy]

lol correction jake, a frag to get in, good for all day playing.

That someone might just have to be me you know, jerry!
have any pics of it?

When i get home from work in a couple hours i'll post up some pics of the mame cabinet.

I also happened on a deal on a nice slot machine last month.. Picked it up for only $100, worth 4 or 5 easy. It's one of those with the LCD screens built in infront of the reels. Does some pretty crazy stuff lol

[lightningfront]

When i get home from work in a couple hours i'll post up some pics of the mame cabinet.

Did you get the new Marquee yet? I'd be imbarrased to post that 

[Arcade_Guy]

lol no i havent even designed it yet. I guess hindsight is 20/20... Nothing good ever comes from haste.

I mean, I don't think it's bad enough to warrant giving certain people real nightmares, but it does need changed, I will admit that.











It looks a lot wider than it does IRL. lol

[lazylivin]

That is a great setup. I like the extra buttons on the side for pinball. Man, this is inspiring me to dust off all the controls and begin the build.

The marquee, uummmm.......yea 

[Arcade_Guy]

i threw the marquee together in about 5 minutes.. At that point in the build i wanted it over and done with so i could play and relax  lol I also felt it to be quite pretentious putting my own name on the marquee, so our loveable dachshund got the spot.

true story.. that marquee actually gave my girlfriend nightmares, and she is "making" me change it.. lol nice right

I'm designing a collage of cool side art from my favorite arcades, so it should turn out much better the second go round.

[lazylivin]

true story.. that marquee actually gave my girlfriend nightmares, and she is "making" me change it.. lol nice right

Dude your avatar is going to give me nightmares!

[jake]

ya for real man enough of the fruit in the pantz with the dog man. For the record you spent money and special ordered that marquee which is just sick. Ok no frags from me until jacks eyes stop freaking me out. He makes it wear sweaters and calls it baby 

[jeblin]

Pictures of the Bastardized Jubilee/Fun Fest 

I didn't take any of these but they were the ones I was sent when I purchased it from the previous owner:

Full shot:



Playing field (if you look closely, you can see the rubber has gone bad)



And one of the back glass itself:



I pretty much haven't touched it since it was delivered up here when I verified all the electronics works (electronics as in 1973 pinball electronics  ). The legs were removed to get it into a truck so I need to make sure I still have the nuts and bolts for them.

[Arcade_Guy]

pretty cool. yeah a lot of what i see on ebay & craigs list for under like 700 or so are these older mechanical tables.

i was told that auctions are the place to go for pinball... my gf works with this lady (i'll refrain from name calling lol) that bought a mint condition Jurrasic Park pinball machine.... Sold it for over $1500. Unfortunately i didn't have a chance to buy it lol That's like my dream table (or nightmare on elm st, something movie related at least)

She only paid like 300 or 400 for it tho. Insanity.

[jeblin]

There's a couple of main arcade/pinball auction sites that actually come to the Dayton/Cincinnati/Columbus area. Unfortunately, everytime they're scheduled to come into town, I have to work or something else comes into effect where I can't.

US Amusement Auctions http://www.usamusement.com/ and SuperAuctions http://www.superauctions.com/pages/home.htm are the two I think...but not 100% sure on SuperAuctions.

My father goes to auctions throughout Ohio/Michigan/Kentucky, and he called me up one evening telling me about how the auctioneer is bringing up 6 arcade machines and he wanted to know if I was interested...asked him what kind/name/manufacturer/etc. He gave me the information and other than Flying Tigers, I never heard of the others. I looked them up and they weren't rare or memorable but they were OLD in arcade years. Being auctioned off, with no electricity, I told him I'd take them if he could get them for $25-30 each just for parts if nothing else. Auctioneer starts them out at $100 each...no one bids....he said screw it if he can't get $100 out of them, he's putting them on Ebay  ... lets see.....$100 each for what might be a plywood box since they didn't want to run an extension cord out to test them. I'll pass.

I have talked to a few people that went to a USamusement auction in Sharonville (if I remember correctly) and they loved it. Good prices but a lot of the systems were either junked out and didn't work 100%. If someone can work on them (it's normally a quick soldering fix or a board swap) they were good deals, but if you can't...you're going to have to take that into account when you purchase one.