My first cabinet pickup

[Vond]

An awful lot sooner then expected I found a cab available quite near my residence!
It was advertised as not working, but here's the kicker; I was able to pick it up for free!

Now, I was calling the guy quite feverishly to check whether the cabinet was still available.
When he finally answered it was a humongous relieve to be informed the cab was indeed still there, and waiting for me
to pick it up.

On to stage 2 of the plan. Now, I do own a car, but without any means of towing a trailer.
So I had to bribe my parents in law (Xentraz's folk) to lend me their car. Turned out, her dad was more then
eager to tag along and help out with actual manual towing of the cabinet!

Then on to the acquiring of the trailer, for this part of the plan I had to bribe my own folk 
I figured, while i was bribing folk left and right, i might as well take a case of beer of the guy offering the cab for free
as well 

Thus began one of the shortest road trips!

A lot of bribing and touring later we beheld the cab itself. For me its a perfect mid 90's cab like i still remember from my youth.
However the description was accurate as it turned out most of the screen electronics were fried.

It was an absolute wrestle to get this thing up to "game room". True nightmare material as you will see in the pics. 

I have removed most of the original electronics now (the original cab had a swappable PCB, Viper Phase 1, installed) but documented the
wiring carefully and stored away all the original (intact) electronics. Due to my lack of knowledge and the messed up components i decided to
just do what I can, and MAME it.

It is now safely resting in our game room and getting ready to be resurrected!

Anyways, i'm really thrilled to be working on my own cabinet right now, and having a blast!
Im sure me and Xen will enjoy the hell out of it!

Time for pictures now!

The bribes! (very important!) 


The car/trailer combination with help of the ol'folk 


Xen and her pa getting ready to load the cab


The cab getting ready to go up the first flight of stairs


The cab finaly inside our residence!

Just noticed somehow the pictures are rotated 90 degrees again, I specifically fixed that...Argh!
EDIT:Fixed the picture's orientation.

[Reboot]

congratulation, 1 down... 

[ckong]

Congratulations, your first cab. Not a real classic though, but you have to start somewhere. A lot of guys, like me, start with an ugly generic cab, including Mame, and once we get the hang of it, the real beauties come into our live.

You will be fine too.  

About Mame, please choose the correct build. There are many different Mame builds, all with their pro´s and cons, but only one build is the right build, which is GroovyMame. Together with the right Videocard (ATI Radeon HD series) Groovymame beats them all, easily.


And please, whatever you do, don´t turn your cab in a freaking LCD carrier. a CRT is the only way to go.

Oh, we really like to see photo´s here, but we don´t like to do all kind of gymnastic exercises for it to see them properly, so please rotate your pictures before posting.  

[Vond]

Haha I wouldnt dream of going LCD!
And as for the pictures, like i said i thought they were fixed but turned out they weren't. Mea culpa,
Ill see if I can fix it during the day

Yeah, the classics surely WILL come. This will have to do now. Not bad considering (apart from the time) i can fix this whole
cab for less then 50Euro's  All thanks to free local pickups hehe.

[level42]

Congrats, you have completed step 1

Nothing wrong with that cab, it's a nice generic cab IMHO and I looks to be in good condition.

I started with MAME-Ing a generic cab too....and I still have it....

Erik, does Groovymame work wit Ultimarc's ArcadeVGA too ? ( the model of 5 years ago)
And do you run it on Linux ?

[Ronald Reagan]

nice story, congrats on your first cab. Which game is in it?

that cab is a real good start up! 

[Vond]

It came with Viper Phase 1, but was obviously meant to be exchanged quite easily. But since most of the screen circuitry was fried i decided to do what i could and mame it. Still working on it.
I documented all the original connections and photographed whatever i could, then removed them and stored all the original (undamaged) hardware in a box.

[gyruss]

Congrats, i also started with a royal video (with a multi board), great beginner cab... it will be a gateway drug do the real thing..

[ckong]

... Erik, does Groovymame work wit Ultimarc's ArcadeVGA too ? ( the model of 5 years ago)
And do you run it on Linux ?

Yes, it works with ArcadeVGA, but it is not the best combo. Not because of GM, but because of ArcadeVGA limitiations. The perfect combo is with an (old) Radeon (HD) card, together with the CRT EMU driver. You can get one for € 15 on marktplaats (Radeon HD 4250 with 1 GB memory for instance). Remember always to use the main video output on a videocard. There is a subforum dedicated to GroovyMame and CRT Emudriver on BYOAC.

I run my set with XP. I know that Linux can offer more flexibility (fi with regard to video cards), but I don't want to spend time learning my way around in Linux when it already works perfect with XP.

[level42]

OK, thanks, let's see if I can score a video card like that. I need to get my MAME machine back up and running !.....sometime......


Sorry, back on topic