Jody's Garage Arcade

2010-03-19T21:22:00.003-05:00

Donkey Kong Jr. purchased on Craigslist.org for $115. Replaced the boardset for another $100. Still needs a few tweaks here and there but looks like I have my own Nintendo cab.

Future plans:
replace joystick with NOS Nintendo joy,
replace backlight with LED marquee light from GroovyGameGear,
strip black paint on sides and repaint original colors,
Double Donkey Kong upgrade,
sideart?

New toy - original Midway Gorf cocktail!

2007-10-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

Latest toy acquired in a trade. Drove all the way to St Louis, MO and back for this one.

This is an original Midway Gorf cocktail. Original glass and art.

Modified w/ a AMD K62-300 mhz computer.

Operating system is MS-DOS, with ArcadeOs for a frontend.

Coin door coin rejects are modified to act as a credit button and reset button.

Plays 30-40 classics perfectly.

Those are Ms Pac-man reunion joysticks at both sides.

Awesome!

Dynamo cabinet - completed?

2007-05-05T09:12:00.000-05:00

So my buddy Timoe sent me a PM a couple of weeks ago, and told me to "update my f'n blog" with pictures of the Dynamo cab. Truth is, its hard to show pictures of my meager efforts when compared to some of the other home built arcade games around (like Timoes and Kneivels) but I guess I'll post pics since they were requested and all...
In the picture, you can see my woodgrain cabinet is still unfinished (because I still cant afford the 27 inch monitor I want) but the Dynamo has been pretty much completed. Functional coin door w/ lights, lighted marquee, vertical monitor orientation, tinted plexi, credit/pause buttons, one button to turn it all on and off. All of the things that make a decent Mame cabinet.

So there you go Tim, I hope you're happy!! ;)

More AppleTV hacks - Super Mario!

2007-04-08T07:03:00.001-05:00

MacOsX running on an Apple TV -- cool!

2007-04-01T08:49:00.000-05:00

Mario Bros Arcade Reproduction - great site!

2007-01-27T23:20:00.000-06:00

This is a great looking cab!

I have been watching as this guy and his brother have built these two great looking cabs. Check out, Mario Bros Arcade Reproduction and look out how these guys built two classic arcade cabs from scratch! The cabs built are a Donkey Kong 3 (pictured) and a Mario Brothers...Both are going to be made into Mame cabs and a classic cabinet wasn't sacrificed in the process.

Great stuff!

Linux users

2007-01-27T07:32:00.000-06:00

This is how most people feel about Linux zealots like me.
This is another one of my favorite cartoons, Dilbert.

Happy New Year!!

2006-12-31T22:41:00.000-06:00

Happy Holidays and here's to a great 2007!
(Thanks to one of my favorite comics, Luann, for the comic strip)

Fantasy Football - update.

2006-12-31T08:09:00.000-06:00

Hooray! I took 1st place in the 1st Annual Asshats FF League and 3rd place in the 2nd Annual Methodist North Monkey Spankers League.

Lots of fun all year and I cant wait to play again next year.

I'm getting better every year at this stuff!

Fantasy Football

2006-12-16T07:22:00.000-06:00

I am down to the final four in both of my fantasy football leagues.

Hopefully, Tony Romo wont screw things up for me tonight!

Click this video to watch how he has been playing lately:

Thanks to Drew Bledsoe's blog, Tonyhomo.com for the vid.

-Jody

2006-12-03T08:48:00.000-06:00

Update on my Dynamo cabinet. Its getting closer to completion. Since this photo was taken, I have added red t-molding and painted the bezel around the monitor black.

You can see from the picture that the monitor is mounted vertically for "classics" such as Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, Donkey Kong, etc.

The control panel has a dedicated 4 way joystick and 2 buttons. It also has an admin panel in the front for pause, escape, and adding quarters.

Fudpuckers in Destin, FL

2006-06-25T11:27:00.000-05:00

We love to go to Fudpuckers when we are in Florida.

The kids got their pictures made with a live alligator!

Back from vacation...

2006-06-25T10:58:00.000-05:00

Back from vacation. We spent one glorious week on the Gulf Coast in Destin, FL.
I'm still trying to convince Michelle to let us move down there permanantly when she gets out of school.

The weather was perfect. We got a little sunburned the first day.

The pictures are from a beach we found a little off the beaten path.

It was so far away from the regular beach that we were pretty much all alone out here. It felt like we had our own private beach!

2006-04-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

Almost done! Looking so good. Tim has done an awesome job. This cp looks better than I ever imagined it was going to. Who needs a flippin' SlikStik? This looks way better.

2006-04-02T09:13:00.000-05:00

CP box nearing completion as well.

2006-04-02T09:09:00.000-05:00

Artwork cut to fit. It looks really good!

2006-03-25T06:51:00.000-06:00

The latest? T-nuts installed on the cp and covered with drywall mud.
Tim explained that drywall compund is better than wood filler because it would leave a harder finish.

Parts, parts, and more parts...

2006-03-24T17:33:00.000-06:00

Some of the many parts that Tim is installing on the new control panel.

2006-03-24T16:56:00.000-06:00

Here are a couple of early pictures of the CP. The top picture is the post-router pictures. Tim is doing a kick ass job on the control panel. I'm really excited to see this thing come together.

2006-03-24T16:50:00.000-06:00

The entire CP will be set around a Marvel comics theme.

Notably, Spider-man and Wolverine, two of my favorite comic characters growing up.

Here is the artwork, purchased from www.mamemarquees.com

I cant give Scott at www.mamemarquees.com enough credit. He does great work and really stands behind his product. He also supplied the marquee of my other Classic Arcade cab.

Big Bad Bad Assked 2 player Control Panel

2006-03-24T16:37:00.000-06:00

After years of pining over a SlikStik control panel, I finally admitted that at approx $500 - $700 bucks, I wont soon be able to afford one of these beauties.

what's a geek to do? I know! I'll capitalize on the things I am good at!

My buddy Tim (timoe from BYOAC), agreed to build me a nice control panel in exchange for my prized Xbox with a 128 meg memory upgrade (for emulators and such).

I supply most of the parts, he supplies the woodworking skill. When done, I send him my Xbox and he sends me the control panel. Everybody is happy!

Click here for the build thread on BYOAC entitled, "Dweebs0r's Big Bad Bad Assked 2 player COntrol Panel".

The attached image is the inital plan for the CP. As you can see, it will have two joysticks per player for 2 player Smash TV and 2 player Karate Champ gaming.

2006-03-18T16:33:00.000-06:00

Here is my newest cab. It really doesnt look this brown in real life. Its painted a satin black. Anywho, this is the cab that I bought for $10 bucks from the "Super Auction" in West Memphis, AR a few months ago. Added a new marquee, a coat of paint, and a computer running Mame and now I have a sweet 'lil Arcade game with very little money invested overall. Woo hoo!

PS2 mod anyone?

2006-02-27T21:14:00.000-06:00

This is why I dont want to fool with modding a PS2. Holy moly! How many solder joints is that??

More BYOAC inspiration

2006-02-14T05:50:00.000-06:00

This post is a little late, Tim sent me this a while ago. Another buddy of mine from the BYOAC forums built a nice little control panel and sent the entire build thread to me.

This control panel will eventually be built into a Bartop unit featuring a modded Xbox (built by me) at the core. Xboxes work great for emulation, including Mame, NES, SNES, and Sega console emulation.

Dynamo cabs

2006-02-11T13:14:00.000-06:00

My buddy, Knievel of Knievel Kustom Kabs sent me a picture of a Dynamo cab he did for inspiration. Check it out. The purpose of sending this image was to keep me going so I can accomplish my goal of finally finishing a cab. It worked. I really like this one and its exactly like the one I just bought (for 10 bucks). Of course mine, needs a little work but hey, 10 bucks!

Adsense (again)

2006-02-10T05:32:00.000-06:00

Okaly dokaly,

I removed the Adsense crap. I decided it wasnt worth 10 bucks a month to whore out my page (even if nobody reads it but me).

2006-02-05T21:35:00.000-06:00

Couple of things to post:

1. Congrats to the Steelers. Nice convincing win in the Superbowl. I thought Alexander would put up a little more fight than he did. Steelers win = I won lunch from my buddy, Scooter.

2. Went to my first ever "Super Auction" in West Memphis, AR on Saturday. West Memphis is a depressing, run down POS of a town but the auction was cool. I bought a fairly nice, horizontal Dynamo cabinet "Buster Bros" for a whooping $10 bucks. Nice.

3. Great blog depicting another cocktail build up. Knights of the Arcade Table Great looking cocktail. I miss mine already.

Another reason to switch from Windows?

2006-01-31T12:13:00.000-06:00

Goo-buntu? Google working on a desktop version of Linux based on Ubuntu.

2006-01-20T16:55:00.000-06:00

Ever notice how the media focuses more attention on young, attractive, white women in peril than anyone else?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10895039/

Not that I dont feel bad for this person but what about everyone else in Iraq who are in danger every day. Not just the military but the residents too!

Comments on this?

Interesting quote

2006-01-20T16:54:00.000-06:00

Religion is totally out of hand. It is the only form of business that the government support knowing that it rips off the poor and ignorant.

Comments?

2006-01-19T16:05:00.000-06:00

A couple of Memphis kids helping the rest of the world view Southerners as just another potential Jerry Springer guest. Click here for the story.

2006-01-17T08:05:00.000-06:00

State of the cabinet? Currently being used for storage at the moment. ** sigh **

I have this shell up for sale so if anyone in the Memphis, TN area wants it shoot me an email.

Ok. maybe the ad thing was a bad idea after all...

2006-01-12T05:52:00.000-06:00

Ok. maybe the ad thing was a bad idea after all. If I dont build up at least $15 or so the month of January then I'll pull the ads. I knew it seemed too good to be true to be able to just sit home and watch the cash pile up.

I guess the only profitable ads are the pr0n ads.

Adsense

2006-01-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

Wow! I'll believe this stuff when I get my first check but I have already built up a whopping $5.00 bucks or so. Woot!

Want to remove the Blogger navbar?

2006-01-02T16:48:00.000-06:00

Want to remove the Blogger navbar?

Click -> here <- for instructions on how to remove it.

Thanks to the author of this useful tip!

-Jody

Off today!

2006-01-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

Woo hoo! Do I have nothing more insightful to offer than that? Woo hoo, indeed.

-Jody

Gone commercial? Yes I have.

2005-12-31T20:33:00.000-06:00

I have added an adertisement banner to the sidebar as an experiment.
I can see now how some of these websites make money. My site sees very little traffic as a whole and yet I have had a few Ads clicked with each ad click giving me a couple of cents here and there. A site like Slashdot.org or Howard Stern.com could have thousands of clicks daily. Sure each click only means a few cents but it seems to add up quickly.

How to get rid of online ads? Use the firefox web browser combined with the adblock plugin. All ads are instantly removed.

-Jody

* sigh *

2005-12-15T07:37:00.000-06:00

The cocktail arcade is gone...

One of the tough things about being a Dad is having to occasionally give up things that you really enjoy just to make ends meet. Its tough but what can you do?

I got about the same amount of money out of it as I had in it.

I didn't make money on it but the guy who bought it paid ~ $350 to ship it home to him so I couldn't really charge him more to make a few bucks.

Anyway, I plan to continue the blog as a personal webpage instead of an arcade cocktail contruction page.

Adios. I had fun doing it. Maybe I'll build another cocktail one day. I still have the large upright cabinet sitting in my garage. Hmmmm.

I'm still here!

2005-10-26T19:37:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted on the blog in a while. I have been busy working.

Not to mention I have a couple of new obsessions (I'm have O.C.D. dont'cha know).

1. Modded Xboxes are the coolest thing ever. You can run emulators from your Xbox with no sweat! Very cool stuff. linkage

2. Fantasy Football. (I'm number two in my league! woot)

-Jody

Hey, this machine took my quarter!

2005-09-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

Snapped a few more pics for the blog.

Here is the Mamewah front end.

Looks good with the Mr.Salty skin downloaded from here

Next, I have a horizontal game running.
Mario Brothers

Monitor images dont really photograph well but you get the idea.

Looks like next weekend, I'll be mounting the computer in place with industrial strength Velcro and wiring up the joysticks.

Sooooo close now!!

IT LIVES!

2005-09-04T16:35:00.000-05:00

I am almost there. Midway Pacman running in all of its glory! I FINALLY got the monitor installed.
An true arcade monitor is infinitely easier to install than a de-cased PC monitor. In an upright cabinet, a de-cased monitor would work okay but I don't have the skill to install one in a cocktail.

Today, my grandfather and I installed the monitor. We also installed the leg levelers and mounting plates. We cut the two circular holes for the fans and the 2 holes for the speakers and then covered them up with the Midway grills.

I am very happy! All of the time, the hard work, the frustrating turn of events (more than one!), and etc. etc. are all completely and totally worth it!

What was once a big pile of wood, is now a Pacman cocktail.
W00t!

Monitor on the way/gameroom pics.

2005-08-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

New monitor is on the way. Thought I would post an interesting link.

Recreating the 80s, one cab at a time.
http://www.pbase.com/jripley/gameroom

JRipley is my hero.

Also, made it to Missouri and back without a hitch. The new upright cabinet is sitting in my garage. I didn't really like woodgrain cabs before, but now I have a woodgrain cocktail and a woodgrain upright so they're starting to grow on me a little.
I'll post pics asap.

-D

New monitor - again.

2005-08-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

I bought another monitor from Ebay. This hobby is becoming a little expensive. The original PC monitor I bought? Well, let's not discuss that one anymore as it's about to be headed for a local landfill. The new monitor is a Wells Gardner U3100 Arcade monitor and should be perfect for my application of a cocktail arcade cabinet.

Headed to St Louis this weekend to pick up the "Frankenshell" and take the kids to the Six Flags theme park while we are there.

Wish me luck!

Monitor mounted? - not.

2005-08-05T07:39:00.000-05:00

Thought I would reiterate here what I spoke about on the BYOAC forums.

I tried and tried to get my decased monitor mounted in the cocktail machine and just couldn't do it.

I ended up breaking the control board in the front of the monitor for my trouble.

I made a post on BYOAC for suggestions, and AlanS17 came through with an idea of using a wood frame and angle iron. Here is the concept:
I am going to give this a shot this weekend. If I can't get the monitor frame built, I will bite the bullet and buy a true arcade monitor.

New Linux box

2005-07-25T18:48:00.000-05:00

I have a new Linux computer. Celeron 600 w/ 192 megs ram.

Works pretty good w/ Fluxbox and Ubuntu.

I still prefer Gentoo, but on low spec machines like this, it's not really feasible to compile everything.

I don't think it's snappy enough to power my new M.a.m.e. machine though.

The web page.

2005-07-19T05:32:00.000-05:00

I tweaked the html of this page and the topmost graphic just a little bit more.
Also added a list of "inspirational" projects that really got me into the whole B.Y.O.A.C. thing.

Currently, I am waiting on the 21 inch monitor to arrive from Canada.
I will post pictures of the monitor before and after de-casing it.
Hopefully it should be installed by this weekend. I'll get update pictures of the cocktail posted after the monitor is installed.

Woke up this morning and noticed the house was a little warm. Further investigation revealed an air conditioning unit frozen up. That whole "home warranty" thing seems like it would have been a good idea now. Too bad it's too late.

That is all.

New Project?

2005-07-14T22:08:00.000-05:00

I hate to start one project without finishing another, put I just cannot pass up this great deal!

I am buying this from yet another BYOAC member, paigeoliver.

It will be minus the monitor and the control panel but those wont be too hard to replace.

it has already been dubbed "The Frankenshell".

I cant wait to get it. 4 hour drive from here though, yuck.

New monitor ordered!

2005-07-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

After talking it over with knievel of the B.Y.O.A.C forums I have decided against purchasing a "true" arcade monitor and purchased a 21 inch CRT monitor from an Ebay seller knievel recommended. As you can see from his link, knievels cabinets are unbelievable. The workmanship and ingenuity this guy exhibits is really mind blowing. I just could not go against his suggestion of steering away from the "true" arcade monitor route. With an actual PC monitor I will add the ability of using my cabinet for surfing the web, checking emails, and with the addition of a good set of speakers, I can use my cabinet as an MP3 jukebox! Maybe now the wife'll let this go in the living room. =)

I had previously removed a 19 inch monitor from its case and tried to fit it in my cabinet and discovered that although it looked nice (the pics are above), the screen width was a little too small and it was physically too large to fit comfortably in my cabinet. I would have had to remove the coin mechs from my coin door which would have eliminated using quarters or tokens with my cab which I absolutely did not want to do. There are some great tokens being produced by another member of the B.Y.O.A.C. community. Here is the link. I plan on setting my cab up to accept these tokens.

The actual picture on the monitor is great! I put this one in the attic for a future project (like a bartop). I'll post pictures when I get the new 21 inch monitor de-cased and mounted (that is providing I don't shock myself to death taking the thing apart!).

New Design.

2005-07-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

Changed up the default template a little. Used a template from beccary.com
Found it using a simple Google search.

Hosting the images freely courtesy of imageshack. Art borrowed from tigert and arcadeart

So far, everything on this page is being hosted via completely free services. Cool.

Glued and screwed.

2005-07-08T19:09:00.000-05:00

Well, here is the kit, attached with glue, wood dowels, and a few braces and screws.

Looking good, if I do say so myself!
Things left to purchase:

19 inch original arcade monitor,
computer,
parts for wiring,
arcadevga card to interface computer w/ monitor.

Lots of money to invest still but it will all be worth it when I fire up that first game!

more to come!!

Note: edit of the topmost pic to remove the unmade bed at my wifes request. =)

Problems solved!

2005-07-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

Talked w/ Scott at arcadedepot.com

Hell of a good guy. I got all of the replacement parts I needed from him at minimal expense plus shipping. This is great news. I can't say enough good things about Scott. What a great guy. When I had all but lost hope in building this thing, he really came through and helped me get the parts I needed and regain my enthusiasm on the cab.

That being said, I did have a few minor problems. The replacement side panel is missing the dowel holes needed to attach the control panel sides. That shouldn't be too hard to drill. I can just use the control panels as a template and drill down a little. Next problem, the replacement coin door side they sent was still missing the 3x10 cutout. Major bummer.
Not a problem though, talked w/ Scott and he offered to overnight a second replacement panel to get me on the road to arcade bliss. Wow. Another example of really going the extra mile for a customer.

Arcade Geekdom - part two.

2005-07-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

First impressions. This is right out of the boxes. Not glued or screwed, just pieced together.
It looks very cool. A couple of problems noted right away. I am missing an entire side piece. Also, the 3" by 10" cutout for the third control panel is not cut.

Talked w/ Armax about all of this and it turned into a huge misunderstanding. He said, she said, kind of thing. All I know is I am missing parts. Armax said they were all there when the thing shipped. He gave me a great deal but with missing parts, how good is the deal? So somewhere in the transport/shipping, I ended up missing a few major pieces. This will be a problem for me as I have very few tools and even less woodworking skills.

Arcade Geekdom

2005-07-08T18:55:00.000-05:00

Bought a cocktail kit from a guy named Armax who is a member of the B.Y.O.A.C. community. The kit is to build my own Midway-style cocktail arcade machine. Got the kit for a pretty good price too, it includes most of what I'll need (except a monitor and computer) and at about half of the retail cost.

Why would I want to build my own you ask? Instead of an original board set, such as Pac-man or Donkey Kong, this cabinet will house a computer with an emulator capable of playing thousands of classic games!

First post!

2005-07-08T18:47:00.000-05:00

First post! Ahh, a new website. Finally a place to host my a blog without the hassle of hosting from my home PC. The biggest problem was that the computer hosting my Apache server was dual booting Windows, and the kids kept rebooting it into Window to play silly games.

Anyway, I intend to use the blog as a forum for posting random thoughts and to document the construction of my new arcade cabinet.

Guess I'll start this blog out with a picture of my two kids and my niece. Cute kids.