Jolt Country

YOu wiLL3N see tHiNgS thAt shOuld n0t exISt!!!!

I'd like to invite you, the casual Jolt Country reader and/or poster, something you almost never get in threads these days: an opportunity.

I am going to create an abomination, an arcade horror, and YOU have the opportunity to not encourage this, to not bring this abortion of taste into the world. I am going to bring forth a Moon Patrol cabaret.

"But Jonsey," you might say, "what makes a ... Moon - what? Moon Patrol? Cabaret??"

yES!!!! It has long been my desire, you see, to own a cabaret arcade cabinet, one that is much smaller than the six-foot ones we are all much more familiar with! Well, as of last week, I have obtained the cabinet, and it originally housed an "Omega Race." Omega Race is that one black and white vector game where you ran around a box and shot the shit out of other spaceships. Why a box? Because vectors don't do curved lines that well. Why in space? Because all black and white vector games look like they are taking place in outer space, and that includes games like like SPACE FURY and EARTH CORE VAGINA.

Oh, and there was never a Moon Patrol cabaret machine, ever. So this is going to be all new, and not some official conversion. That was probably the key piece of information I wanted to convey.

Does the Omega Race have the funky background painting that the screen is projected against? That was the one cool thing about that game I liked.


What is a cabaret cabinet? All I can think of are nine French girls on stage showing their undergarments and saying Ooh-La-La. That doesn't sound much like Moon Patrol as I understand it.


THE
NEVER BEEN TO
THAT ARCADE
AARDVARK

AArdvark wrote:Does the Omega Race have the funky background painting that the screen is projected against? That was the one cool thing about that game I liked.


What is a cabaret cabinet?

KLOV calls them "mini" cabinets.

I don't know where the crazy OP got the term "cabaret".

I'll in-line a picture of Omega Race. Asteroids Deluxe had the background painting, didn't it?

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/598/omegarace.gif

Does that look like the game you remember, Vark?

Here is a link to the Googol Image Search for cabaret cabinet:

http://www.google.com/images?q=cabaret+ ... 39&bih=802

The "drop in" AC power center is supposed to arrive today. Will I get to install it? Unlikely. I said I would look at a broken arcade game at the Milker's haunted house, even though he couldn't be bothered to drive five minutes west from the HH to catch the screening of Get Lamp last week. That's just the kind of guy I am.

Yeah that's the game. The one I am thinking had the monitor screen reflected via mirror onto a back-painted piece of glass.
I think they did the same thing for a version of Asteroids.
You could look down the front of the machine and see the actual monitor with all the numbers and letters backwards.
I was actually pretty good at this game. Sunset lanes. That's the bowling alley the game was in. They also had some old, old mechanical shoot the aliens on the moving sticks game.

So a cabaret cabinet is a bar-top model?


THE
MINI ATTRACT MODE
AARDVARK

It's not a bartop but a ...

(motherFUCK that is a large image Jonsey!)

... smaller cabinet. Just imagine a normal cabinet at 75% scale. That's more of less the idea. They're less wide, have the joystick at about the same height, use smaller monitors, and aren't nearly as tall. Typically the monitors slope way back at an angle to make the cabinet's overall height less.

I'll try to take a picture of the cabaret tomorrow. It's got primer all over the back. It really DOES look abominable right now.

I hadn't used the primer in a year, so it had chunks of shit in it. My girlfriend let me borrow a sander so I can fix the glitch.

I've got the drop-in AC center and JAMMA cable ready to go. I ordered a new 13" monitor, and all I really need now is a Moon Patrol to JAMMA adapter, which The Real Bob Roberts also sells for $35. I'm sort of waiting on that till I get the back door to the cab finished.

Vark, Omega Race did reflect stuff with a mirror. I have spent two seconds thinking about how this will be a problem for me since Moon Patrol isn't able to be reflected. Eh, I'm sure I'll fix the problem in the heat of the moment, or the anode cap on the monitor will fall open, killing me. Either/or, I hope I get pics.

What other games used the scoreboard as PART OF THE PLAYING FIELD?

NONE!?!?!?!

I can't think of any!

Update! Everything's been ordered. It will take a few days for the JAMMA adapter to be built. The Real Bob Roberts included some candy with the AC center. I think, before I get the wiring ready, I am going to fit the monitor in the cab. Just to make sure everything slides together nicely.

Back panel: sanded!!

Well, I figured out how to attach the monitor. I actually saw it myself last night, and went over to KLOV this morning where there was a fine photo of the holes in the cab where I'd attach the thing. So, win/win.

I'm good at this point, then. There's no "blocks." Nothing blocking me.

However, I need some long bolts. I have none! I will stop by Home Depot on the way home and get some, along with some washers. I also don't feel great about just two bolts holding the monitor in, even though its weight will press against a sturdy board. I'd like two bolts on each side. But the wood it will press against isn't long enough, so I'll need to make it longer. No prob.

This leaves me to where I can wire the thing and start throwing power into it. The PCBs should be fine, but there's always a chance something bad happened during shipping. I'll make sure the game boots up OK before I put the high score save in it.

Oh! And Roger from the ifMud helpfully informed me that Inkscape is a program I can use to vector some artwork. (I need to make my own marquee for this, and I want to vectorize existing Moon Patrol art.)

What a debacle!

I went to bolt the monitor to the cab tonight. WELL in doing so it banged against the cab. I hear a "hissing" sound and I figure I fucked up something pretty well. God dammit. God dammit!

I wire the cab and turn the monitor on anyway. It's hissing pretty badly and I see a blue glow near the neck. No idea what I did.

Thought I'd at least see if I could get a picture. So I go to wire the JAMMA cable to the monitor. They don't have compatible connectors. I have to use a dremel to hack away at the JAMMA cable video connector because it won't fit. I cut v-sync away from the other four wires (red, green, blue and ground).

Well, those won't fit when it's just those four on the connector.

So I thought I'd fine some clips and do them one at a time. Only I have no idea where I put them after fixing the Polybius with Aardvark's joystick plate. How the fuck did I lose them? Where the fuck would I put them? It's a mystery.

I won't lie. This project is at its darkest point!

I "think" the blue glow is good. Usually when I hear people talking about troubleshooting monitors, they look for neck glow, and if they don't have any, that's actually bad.

Just guessing, but I'll bet that "hissing" is a short or arc of some sort. I wouldn't run it that way for long. Then again, it won't run that way for long on its own.

My pal Jim came over tonight and looked at it. As it turns out, I cracked the vacuum in the tube. HAHA OHHH SHIT. So, it's fucked. I gotta get a new tube or else this project is going nowhere!

I just set one next to your Centipede cabinet ...

Whoa, a 13" tube? For reals?

I'm also really regretting in-lining that Omega Race pic now.

Ack, 13" ? I think everything I have is ... bigger. 19" ?

Regardless, I know enough people. If/when you come down, I will get you a 13" monitor.

Here's the thing. My gal is out of town the weekend of November 14th. The Saints are on a bye. LITERALLY the only thing stopping me is transport back up to Colorado. Oh, and wondering if you are in town and/or available at all that weekend.

A one-way flight was only like $59. Nnnnghhhh! I really have to call every truck rental place in Oklahoma and see what I can reserve. I want that goddamn Centipede!

Update! This weekend, I wanted to make sure the boardset was OK. I powered on the cab with Moon Patrol's PCBs, and tied the JAMMA wires to my 48-in-1. Moon Patrol came up just fine. Now I'm obsessed with getting the entire thing going.

Here's what it looks like at the moment: