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My Idea for a LCD Cocktail Arcade Game Hack
One day I would love to find an old cocktail table arcade game that is burned out and not working and gut it and install a LCD monitor and a Mac Mini. Also I would use some wireless controllers or see if I could hook up a USB interface to the joysticks. I am sure that there is a cool Make Magazine project out there like this.
There is just something about early 1980s fake wood grain paneling.
Jake at April 13, 2006 
Games
Comments
Here (http://www.codinghorror.com/mamecocktail/) is a guy that made a Mame one. Do a google search for "mame cocktail cabinets" and steal the best ideas.
Posted by: Rob at April 13, 2006 10:17 AM
That'd be awesome. Actually, come to think of it, I think I know someone in Manchester who has a cocktail table sitting in their basement. It's not the fake wood-panelling type, but definitely old-school. Unfortunately they got rid of their Ms. Pacman setup a few years back, which had the wood-panelling going on. Want me to check it out?
Posted by: Robert at April 13, 2006 11:10 AM
Actually, one way you could do it is wire the joystick's microswitches to a playstation PCB then you can attach them to a playstation to USB adaptor and program the controllers in mame.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/XxhennersXx/P5180020.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/XxhennersXx/P5180021.jpg
I did that with a universal controller. So it works on xbox, ps1,ps2, gamecube and with the PS2 adaptor it works on my PC as well.
Posted by: ShotgunSteve ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.8bitjoystick.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 13, 2006 2:53 PM
I really like the Mac Mini, but sadly its GMA 950 is no ArcadeVGA:
http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainf.html
You'll probably need one of those if you want to re-use a decent arcade monitor, or do a lot of re-wiring.
Posted by: ravuya at April 26, 2006 10:12 AM
I had a cocktail arcade machine back in the 80's. Galaxian, in fact. Eventually the motherboard died and I jinxed it up as the monitor for my BBS. It was cool to have it in the living room and serve food on it, watching people chat away at 1200 baud.
Posted by: author_planetheidi at May 4, 2006 10:20 PM
