Replying to my own post...and appending a bit more "about me"
Okay - so I've admittedly been a John's arcade lurker for awhile now. I frequently check for new YouTube vids, and recently saw that you had the "new" forums up... so, I figure ...why not join in on the insanity
How it all started...Last spring, my wife and I decided to shuffle around some of the rooms in our house, and in doing so, we ended up with a sun room that presented us with two options...Option A) Fill it up with expensive wicker furniture and random decorations in hopes that one day... we might actually sit in there and read a book, or Option B) Arcade!!!!!
Needless to say, I was pessimistic that my wife would bite on Option B... it was a long shot. However, at the time, I did have ONE arcade machine that was proving to be an eyesore in our office, so hey.. sounded like a good option to me, right? Oddly enough, my wife agreed. Instead of wasting money to fill a room up with furniture that we'd never use, why not move the arcade machine in to the sun room, and turn it in to the "Arcade."
Anyway.. so I had this ONE arcade machine... but how can you make an arcade out of one machine???... short answer: You can't, its lame. So, it was time to start a project.
The first projectSo my son, fell in love with an animated movie, centered around a fictitious arcade game from the early 1980s. You all can guess what I am talking about. So after some poking around online...I set out to put together the perfect arcade machine for my son (...and myself, of course). I don't particularly have any of the necessary woodworking tools (or skills.. yet!) to create my own cabinet, but I did end up stumbling along a cheap original DK Nintendo cab that had been converted to a Unisystem VS Goonies. This worked out great for the task at hand.. I had a decent cabinet, a 2 player CP (this is actually a big bonus), and I found all of the VS documentation on John's arcade to be very helpful. Needless to say, that machine is done.
TWO arcade machines down.
The PinSo growing up, my grandparents had an oldschool Gottleib EM pin in their basement. It was my official "intro to pinball" ...and this pin is still owned by my family. However, being a child of the 80s, I wanted a pin that had a bit more gusto... speed... oomph! That's why, for my birthday last year... I just bit the bullet and bought my first solid state pin. I did some research, but not nearly enough...and in the end, I bought a Fish Tales pin. I'm not an avid fisherman... at all, but I did spend a lot of time during the summers fishing with my family when I was a kid, and every time I look at translite on this pin, it brings back good memories. Besides that, I really do love this pin. It is totally family friendly.. its challenging...and I've found it to have great reply value. I really don't think it will be easy for me to part with it
THREE arcade machines down.
The driving gameSo now that the arcade was finally growing.. I still had a major hole... no driving game. Every time we're in a bowling alley, movie theater, etc.. my son always goes directly for the driving game. So this was the next priority. Queue craigslist....and about a month later, after checking daily.. bam! Sega Outrun. That day I emailed the seller, came by to check it out, and made an offer on the spot. I came back to pick it up with a larger vehicle the next day. It took my wife and I nearly 3 hours to get it inside the house from our driveway even after running out to purchase a refrigerator dolly (the flimsy tires on my hand truck were just getting completely crushed by the weight!). The Outrun is far from perfect, but everything "works" ... first task is to replace the monitor...quite a bit of screen burn...
FOUR arcade machines down
...and that brings me to where I am now.
Over the weekend, my wife and I decided to paint the "sunroom" Black .. and now it definitely has more of an arcade feel. Arcade "decor" coming soon...
Also, as far as the name of my arcade goes.. I decided to stick with the pseudoname that I've been using for the past 15 years (Mastar) and dub the arcade "Mastar's Arcade." Please don't see it as an attempt to knock off "John's Arcade." ..and I also didn't mean to make my avatar in anyway representative of the John's Arcade logo.. it was just a quick and dirty attempt to emulate the
logo.
Anyway, that's it for now. I hope to become a part of the community... and keep on acquiring machines until they'll no longer make it viable to walk through our sunroom!
Quick pic of the arcade...(less one machine on the other wall)
