The Classic arcades of the 80s and 90s are dead or I am massively jaded?

[The Classic arcades of the 80s and 90s are dead or I am massively jaded?]

know this pain all too well, check out this link in miami,fl. you will not be disappointed.it is called arcade odyssey.

 

 

rick

[wow]

Yes I have, several times in fact, I played it in MGM studios in Orlando, Florida, used to be located in an Arcade, which is where pizza planet now resides. It was an amazing game, I even had an opportunity to purchase one of these behemoths once, the problem is the space these things take up, and in Miami which is where i reside, space is at an all time premium.

 

Rick

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Wow, excellent I want one of those. Are they rare?

Not super rare, You can find them on ebay pretty regularly, they are usually not boxed or missing parts thou. A complete unit in box you'll run across 1 every 3-6 months or so.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Ok here is another one of those ridiculous - how the hell did he find that - system, This is the Laseractive system -which is not all that rare but then you have the PAC-PC1 control module - which is about as close to unobtanium as you can get, it worked with the Pioneer Laseractive system and your windows 98 PC, it would allow your computer to control the Laseractive and do certain things like jump around the disc by hitting certain keys on the remote, sort of like a dragons lair arcade game, but you could control this one, in other words you could get any laserdisc movie and write your own control script upload it to the PAC in the laseractive, then you would use the remote to control the playing of the disc by jumping to the frame positions written in your script as if you were playing a laserdisc game,. I'm including many pics showing the system, the PAC itself front and back, the Tenchi Muyo laserdiscs that the PAC would work with - the software came with sample programs and they worked with the Tenchi Muyo discs that you see here, that is the entire laserdisc set the samples would control, in the images, they were 9 total. Several pics showing the program running in a windows xp notebook, and finally what you would see on the screen which was the laserdisc movie playing and overlays directing you on what buttons to press on the remote overlayed over the playing movie - hope everyone enjoys.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Just got my hands on 2 singer Gameboy sewing machines, you never know when you'll need a spare.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Picked up an accessory I had been hunting for quite a while now, the ridiculously rare and overpriced Panasonic SH-GB10 Gameboy boy player for my Panasonic dvd gamecube. Also got a not so rare - quite common actually BLIP system and another accessory that I had never seen before the Compumate, which turns your Atari 2600 into a basic computer.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

A few more obscure pickups, an Atari Portfolio with parallel port and zip drive, running the T2 pin program -of course, and a dreamcast divers 2000 cx-1, in pieces, bought it on ebay broken, and when I mean broken , it was hulk smash. The screen was blown, the pcb was cracked and split in 4 places, unbelievably I found another crt for it and got the crt to come up , but the pcb is not responding properly, hopefully will get it properly working some day.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Now onto the console front, Got an IS Nitro Emulator for Gameboy development, also got my hands on an Nintendo NDEV Wii development system, Got a Microvision Super Casse Brique, which was only released in Europe and is the hardest to find cartridge for the Microvision, heck it even came with it's original box. A Gameboy pocket sonar, yes it is a fish finder for your game boy. A Gameboy Icard which allows you to get times and other racing info in several racetracks around the US. Yeah I know no new consoles, but I have some pretty rare stuff I will share tomorrow. Till then see you at the Arcade.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Now on to the updates, starting on the arcade side, I have brought in Phychic force 2012, very cool 3d game with one of the weirdest pcbs I have run across, it is running on a Taito wolf system, which looks like a hybrid pc mixed with an arcade board, I have seen emulator pcbs like this in the past from china, but this pre-dates them all, this was released in 1998, and it is an original not an emulated poc - Piece of Crap. I have also brought in Fate unlimited codes with another system 256 to appease the fighting community down here. I have gotten my hands on a classic Taito game - Battle shark that was pretty beat up, monitor was damaged, pcb was damaged and looking port through the periscope was damaged, but this is what it looks like after 3 weeks of work and everything repaired, what a great game. I have also added a new game into the Arcade that I had run into at the IAAPA show last year - this is called Jet ball and is starting to get a following, it is really a lot of fun. And finally I just received this last week, Undercover cops alpha renewal - awesome game, I am looking forward to bringing this rarity into the arcade in the next week or so, I even made a custom marquee for it, if you have ever seen the original it looks like crap.

 

Oh I almost forgot, got a Xevious 3D/G PCB and it is awesome, I am not sure if I will be bringing that one into the arcade anytime soon, but I am thoroughly enjoying it at home.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Oh before I forget, I did see the ghostbusters Firehouse, that was pretty cool.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Ok it has been a while, time to play catch up, Since I last wrote I went back to new York city, and visited conney island. I was looking forward to finally seeing this entertainment haven that I have heard about for so many decades now, I was expecting rows and rows of arcades and entertainment complexes and this is what greeted me when I got there.

 

Pretty sad, there was 2 small arcades , mostly redemption. So disappointed.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Got a pacman and Ice cold beer added to the collection, put pacman in the arcade, not sure about putting the ice cold beer in yet, somewhat rare game and I really like it and in other news I created and filed a new company with the state of Florida and the IRS - "The national Video Game History museum" now legally exists, we hired a consulting company and now are working with them on the 501c3 for tax exception status, if we get it we will then proceed forward with my original idea of the museum, it has been 4 years coming but let's see if I can get over this hurdle, as I mentioned quite a while ago when I was first creating the arcade, Yoinks and AWAY!!!! Again.....

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Did an outstanding job with the Gorf cab and it looks awesome!! That abandoned house was truly dusturbing. Someone had major issues whoever caused all the damage and graffiti. Dreamcast logo perhaps on the top right picture in the abandoned house?

Good call on that dreamcast logo.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

And for my final post tonight 2 days ago I just received a pretty rare laseractive disk, It is Melon Brains but the LD ROM 2 version, normally these were done for the megacd, however there were a few laseractive games done like this for both platforms among them were

 

Bi Ryojon Collection - Pretty Illusion - Yuko Sakaki - MegaCD - normally this one came as an LD ROM 2 version

Bi Ryojon Collection 2 - Pretty Illusion 2 - Minayo Watanabe - MegaCD - normally this one came as an LD ROM 2 version

Goku, LDRom2 - normally this one came as a MegaCD version

Blue Chicago Blues, MegaCD - normally this one came as an LD ROM 2 version

 

Im still missing those 4 and of course the laseractive Myst Prototype, but have all the rest of them so all is not lost .

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

We have hit June, and I managed to get my hands on an arcade pcb that I have been hunting for quite a while, Trio the punch, here is what I posted when I installed it last week

 

New game just arrived from japan, this one is very unique and uber rare so I expect all of you to come play it at least once, it was classified as one of the first kuso-ge games or more commonly translated as crap game. Yes only a few of you will know what this is, but none of you that play this will ever forget it. AO is proud to bring you the one and only Trio the Punch - Never forget me. Yes I managed to get my hands on one, and it was not easy in fact this one was really a pain to get, but here it is so come give it a try. I will post some links so those of you that have never seen it can read up on this Engrish speaking, colonel sanders punching, sheep cursing beat em up - yes that about sums it up.

 

and here are some links for you to read more on this pcb

 

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/triothepunch/triothepunch.htm

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TrioThePunch

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

We have hit mid May, I just finished winning an auction for a Gorf arcade machine, stated in the auction that it was not working and looks pretty rough in the pics, we went to go pick it up in a warehouse district about 30 minutes form the arcade, looks like it had been sitting in the back of the warehouse for at least 15 years. When we got it back to office I went through 1 whole paper towel roll, several Lysol wipes,and 2 magic erasers later and this thing was freaking beautiful, it seemed that all the dirt was acting as a protective layer, the manuals were in perfect condition in there protective envelope, awesome. I then decided to change out all of the light to leds even thought they were all working perfectly. Yeah I know original parts ,etc, etc, but if I'm going to be bringing this baby into the arcade it has got to be as little maintenance and as bulletproof as possible, darn it I had forgotten to purchase feet for it when I had gone to home depot for the erasers, but when I opened up the coin door and checked in the coin box, in a pretty little pouch were the original feet, I don't think this machine was even put anywhere to be played, I did not even have to adjust to monitor it was perfect. Truly a thing of beauty.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

We are now in the Month of May, I just received a Tatsunoku Vs Capcom from Japan. Awesome game, into the Arcade it goes.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

 

In the Arcade Front, I received a Kaneko Super Nova PCB along with a Cyvern cart, great shump, I went ahead and put it on the arcade floor along with both of the Namco system 256 pcbs I had purchased back in April, I decided to put in Dragon Ball Z and Soul Caliber 3 as the first 2 Namco 256 titles I would be bringing into the Arcade.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Catch up time ladies and gents, well it has been a couple of months since I last posted , so hmmm where to begin, well I guess we will start at where I last left off, in April, I went over to a friends home and we decided to go bike riding through the everglades, we were in the middle of nowhere - no paved roads, no homes, no lights, nothing. when we noticed some power lines running into some trees off in the distance, as we approached the trees we noticed that in the center of the shrubbery there was a home that had been abandoned, not in too bad a shape I might add. It did have the usual devil worship, death tags ,etc that one would be looking to find in a place overrun by foliage in the middle of nowhere, but even out here I managed to find references to my beloved hobby - Arcade collecting, you will notice a pacman and ghost, and a pixie which had an uncanny resemblance to the ladybug arcade character. Yeah I know im stretching that last one but still I thought It was pretty neat. Here are the pics.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Late night, but just received 2 Namco system 256's and a crap ton o games, check out the pics, I am missing 1 marquee which is gundam vs gundam, should be getting that next week.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Well as some of you may remember I was desperately looking for an Olivetti envision, It was 1 of 4 consoles that I was missing from the collection,eventually I did manage to get my hands on 1 but it was broken, a couple of years later I get another Olivetti envision, but this one came with extra parts so I was able to repair the original and now I had 2 units the original 400 and the P75 model, but I was lacking all the software, the remote, etc. Now 6 months later I get an email from a posting that I did in a forum back in 2010 from Holland none the less, and it was someone wanting to sell me a boxed envision with everything that came with it, this even came with a magazine from july 1995 with an article on the Olivetti and a brochure, really a nice complete setup, so now I have 3 complete working units, funny how things show up when you least expect them to. Also I picked up a Commodore 16 which I just added to the collection, And the carts that I mentioned 2 posts ago just showed up for the Mattel computer discovery system, they come with a very nice overlay, unfortunately I only managed to get 1 cart with the overlay the other 2 were loose, here are some pics, enjoy.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Good day today, got a GD-EMU in today which allows me to put all my dreamcast games on a single sd card and play them on my dreamcast instead of constantly swapping out gd roms all the time. Also got 2 different versions of usb flash drive readers for the 3do, 1 for the fz1 and the other one for the fz10, So I can just plug in a usb flash drive instead of constantly swapping out the cd's and a 2nd GD emu type device but this one uses usb sticks instead of sdcards. Also got a Children's Discovery system an educational console by Mattel from 1981, got a few carts on the way for this one, enjoy the pics.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Just finished reading the entire thread. I'm very impressed by all your hard work, it's worth it. I live in Montreal but if I ever come to Florida, I'll remember to go and pay a visit to Arcade Odyssey.

 

And I'm also incredibly jealous of your console collection. Hope you find your missing systems someday.

 

-Charles

Thank you for the kind words Charles, I do hope to find the remaining 3 systems, maybe someday. Also let me know if your ever coming down would love to give you the gamer's tour.

 

Rick

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

Brought in a little something quite old into the arcade, Not sure if it will even get any play, but I don't care, to me it is a true classic and deserves it's time on the gaming floor an original Atari 1978 - 4 Player Football, and I went all out on this one. It has been lovingly restored with new trackballs, new rods and new bearings, the motherboard was repaired and cleaned, the power supply recapped, the big caps on the AC inputs replaced, new power cord and all new illuminated buttons, cones & leds. Heck I even changed the 6 little bulbs that illuminate your plays with soft glow led strips to give you a more even glow, and finally replaced the green gel overlay to give the screen it's green grass look, this one was a true labor of arcade love, If your in Miami come this rarity a try, I will leave it in the arcade for a limited time.

[ccatalyst Gameroom Collection.]

On the console front, It has been a bit slow, just rounding out the collection a bit, I accidentally ordered another digi-casse system, I did not realize I already had this one, oh well another spare. I also just got the original manuals for my sega Teradrive. That's all for now.