ccatalyst
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Posts posted by ccatalyst
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Or more in the central part of Florida.
Seriously, though, congrats. You'd make a friend of mine who works on restoring vintage arcade cabinets as a hobby down there jealous.Who is he, there may be a good chance i know him. But don't anyone congratulate me yet, we are still a ways off till we get started, however i did get a picture of what the place may look like with the signs from my signage company today, so i am posting a pic below for everyone to see, remember this is a mock up from the sign company and not the real thing, but it does show the look that im trying to go for. Just to get the 2 vinyl signs in the windows + the signage above , the circle is almost 3 ft in diameter and the arcade odyssey portion is like 20ft long, all with led lighting, electrical , timers , permits, installation, blood, etc and the signage in the pylon that faces the street , is going to be close to $10k, man does money go fast when you are trying to get one of these darn things started.
Thank you all once again
Rick.
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Thanks crazy climber, i appreciate the kind words, you can be certain we will be selling those t-shirts as soon as we open, also here is an update for everyone.
On the arcade side, we passed electrical finals today - hurray, and we also submitted all the paperwork to get the certificate of use for the premises. So now we wait, tokens are ordered,the token changer has arrived, a few parts for the token changer has been ordered,3 - 4 tons AC's have been fixed and serviced, blacklight carpet has been ordered, electrical is done, chairs for the consoles have been ordered, we are going with these - xrocker pro pedestals, pics below, we ordered 15 of these babies, we also got a 48" double glass door fridge for the japanese imported drinks and snacks which are going to be ordered once the carpet is here, pics of the fridge are below, this fridge already arrived and cools very cold very quickly, next on the assembly line comes the 3d monitors for the consoles, and the consoles , parts for the arcade games have been stacking up in my office for over a month now, and the blacklight paint is going to be ordered this week. I am currently also waiting for double doors to be added in the rear of the building + shutters, signage, tshirts, brochures, cards, cups, website, high speed internet for the systems and patrons we are going with a 100mbps circuit and of course insurance, which has all been requested. So onward we go into the void. Oh before anyone goes on about, how the heck is he getting a 100Mbps circuit, my other business is this one, Nettogo , which is a 5500sq ft colocation facility and it is located just 200ft behind the new arcade's location, we have gig pipes coming into our facilty so we are just running a 100mbps connection for the arcade, it is very nice to have it so close.
On the console side, just received today a 2nd FZ-35S M2 for a spare, + 2 spare dvd drives for them, and just got a steel battalion boxed set to add to my controllers, i will post pics of those tomorrow.
Anyhow that is all for now, more updates coming soon, keep hitting me with your comments /ideas / suggestions/ hate mail, heck i even got a wedding proposal from someoone, it keeps me smiling and it is good to know im not the only one writing here.
Many Thanks,
Rick
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Ok the arcade is beginning to get started, still moving at a snails pace though, so far the carpet has been ripped up and under the carpet there was linoleum, that was also ripped up so now the floor is super sticky like a giant sheet of fly paper, it actually took off my shoes when i tried to walk across it, the electrical work we needed is done, but we failed inspection, and for the dumbest possible reason, the flexible metal conduit was cut with tin snips instead of some special tool they want the electrician to use, even though the ends have grommets on them so there are no sharp edges, they want all 8 outlets and both new power poles redone from scratch, also the air conditioning guy decided to do the ac without pulling the permit first so now that is also delayed, i met with the sign guy today and hopefully will have pricing on the signs and t-shirts tomorrow, and spoke and sent info to the insurance guy, waiting for a quote for that .I have receiving the token test prints to get ready for minting , which hoperfully will get started tomorrow. I should be receiving my double door stainless steel glass door fridge tomorrow, which we will be using for the imported drinks and snacks, that is all for my updates on the arcade side, on the console side, i just received another laseractive disc, Pretty Illusion - Yuko Sakaki, this leaves me with only 2 missing, 3d austrailia and blue chicago blues, hopefully i will find those soon, i also received a super famicom box, this is a box that was used in hotels, and used special carts, i believe you had to pay to play this thing, well no matter it has been assimilated into the collective, here is a link to find out more info ont his unique console,
and here are some pics of the arcade in its current condition, and the super famicom box.
Rick
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Ok everyone, new updates, no news on the arcade front, everything is still in a hurry up and wait mode, however we have a new update on the console side, it is a very rare and unreleased handheld courtesy of a great seller sam spade, actually his real name is johnathan, he sold me a Shanda Ez-Mini, this is a rather neat device that has wifi, bluetooth, picture viewer, audio and video player, can surf the internet and who the heck knows what else, most of the writing is in chinese, here are some links to get more info on this unique unit,
apparently the unit was never mass produced, according to johnathan i have 1 of 22 known units, the pics also include the rom screen which basically shows some #'s, then the boot screen, and then the main screen in red, it came preloaded with some games, which is great, no batteries necessary, it works on a rechargeable battery in the unit like the nintendos. Anyhow,here are some pics for everyone to enjoy.
Rick
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Well finally after several months of looking , and being shocked by some of the crazy pricing down here, we finally found a place, it is 2500sq ft, located in a strip mall, we just signed the contract today and im hoping to have everything done and moved in , hopefully in 30 days, but im sure the county / licensing and a dozen or more government agencies will see to it that it probably takes a lot longer than that. But im still moving forward, here are pics of the place and i will continue to post pics as i get this arcade built. Also you will note that there is a picture of ugly as hell, stained purple carpet, this will all be ripped up, but im posting it just to show how butt ugly the place is currently. Let's see what can be done to turn this place into a great arcade.
Rick
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Hello to all once again, well it looks like we might finally be signing a lease tomorrow, the space is a bit smaller than i calculated, it is only 2500 sq ft, with 2 bathrooms, but it is a start, i will try and take pictures of it as we proceed forward. On the console side we have 2 new items to add to the collection today , thanks to a great fellow collector called Richard Rezza, if you ever get a chance to deal with him, he is top notch, shipped very quickly and his attention to detail and packing is magnificent. I purchased a palmtex with react attack,the external light, outflank and aladdin's adventures, all boxed,Also a boxed epoch pocket computer with block maze, all in excellent shape. Im including images of everything, hope everyone enjoys.
Rick
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Very Nice,Very impressive, even by my standards. I love that you managed to get all the boxes,As a long time collector myself i do not have the luck to find all the units nicely boxed like that, my hats off to you once again.
Rick
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Well the week is over, and unfortunetly no good news on the arcade front, we have not found a single location that looks promising. Im starting to think that opening an arcade may be an impossibility at least in miami, actually to be fair, we did find 2 locations that would be willing to rent to us, and did not demand 2 pints of blood, and a contract with the devil, but as i had said in my prior emails, they were in very low income / high crime areas, not the most appealing prospects, at least not if i wanted to sell crack or back alley abortions, etc. But if nothing else im persistent, so i will try again next week. Also i added a Gamate to the console collection side, i am including a pic. And for all the people that may be reading this post, please keep your fingers crossed for us, im really trying hard to get a descent arcade going, but it sometimes seems like the entire universe has said game over man - game over.
Rick
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Wow. Holy canoli. Your collection is amazing. Good luck with the arcade!
Thank you for the kind words, even though we still have not found a place to place the arcade yet, we have 3 real estate agents working on this, but everything has been hurry up and wait, So we are keeping our fingers crossed and hope we will have some news next week, preferably good.
Rick
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Ok everyone here are the pictures of the new games i just added to the collection,im in the process of repairing them right now, so sorry for the mess everywhere.
We are looking at
house of the dead III
another blast city
trophy hunting
crazy taxi
vapor trx
area 51/maximum force combo
star wars trilogy
18 wheeler
revolution x
pump it up nx
sword of honor
smashing drive
pga tour golf
tsumo jr
nascar
star wars pinball
silent scope ex
arctic thunder deluxe
savage quest
crusin exotica deluxe
terminator 3 pinball
2 - fast track air hockey tables
6 cranes
5 redemption machines
Rick
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Oh, i have beem so busy with the arcade i had forgotten to mention, i had some pictures of me + quotes published in a book, i am the one with the xmen and listed as #20, you can see a video here
and read the first few pages of the book here
http://www.blurb.com/books/2010021
Hope you all enjoy.
Rick
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Just got a House of the dead 3, I will be posting pictures of it and my auction purchases in tennessee hopefully later on today.
Also The hunt for a place for me to open up[ my arcade continues, but still no luck.
Rick
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Well this is not going well, so far i have , a partner, a corporation, a company bank account, funds in the bank account, a business name, a registered dns name, a company logo, 34 perfect working games and 30 of them being worked on, a warehouse to store everything in while they are being repaired, parts on their way to repair said games, lifesize cool action figures, more figures on their way, but NO damn place to get this thing going. We wanted to start with at least 6-12 pins, + 60 games + 10 xbox 360, ps3, and several other consoles with 50 " screens, so we decided we needed somewhere around 4500sq ft or so.
Just in case anyone else decides to do this let me tell you it is no picnic, In miami the rent in almost every place we looked at is way too high, to jujstify the openning of an arcade at least not without charging ALOT for game play, just to give you all some figures
in the beach area - 2400 sq ft - 33k per month + taxes + maintainance + 5-10 yr personal guarantee - yes you read all of that correctly, a volvo + your blood and soul per month
in any major mall - 4000 sq ft - 24k per month + same as above, but you get to keep 1/2 of 1 testicle.
in any strip mall - 3000-4000 sq ft - 10k-16k per month + same as above, 1 testicle + some hair on this one
in any crappy strip mall - 3000-4000 sq ft - 6k-10k per month + same as above but only 3 yr personal guarantee, yeah it better but still shitty, remember we are talking quarters here.
we have looked in the entire miami area, from key largo to north miami, if we found anything lower it was either in a horrible ,crime infested part of town, or in an area where only rodents would keep you company - not even cricketts - im not kidding, or they just would not allow an arcade to be put there, yes, we actually got told by over 10 locations, that there were NO ARCADES ALLOWED, if there was any publixs, winn dixies , chucke cheeses, and at least 2 more that are evading me right now, their leases were specifically written so no arcades could be put in any location where they were, we were told they would attract the WRONG ELEMENT - i assume they meant kids.
So with that said and seeing we are only charging quarters, we decided to open up in a warehouse, the rent was very reasonable - 4k per month, the space was great 6000 sq ft, and we ran demographics in the area, over 13,000 kids ages 10-18 within a 1 mile vicinity, 77 crimes commited since 1-1-11 till today also in the same radius, with a soccer park facing the warehouse, and several karate,swimming,baseball & dance schools within walking distance, everything was looking up, so we thought we were done and then we checked with zoning and lo and behold, you cannot open up an Arcade in a commercial zone, you must be in a retail zone, and of course a retail zone forces you into the price ranges and restrictions listed above. But i am tenacious, so i decided to check with an attorney to see if there is any way to get around this limitation, i picked up the landlord's layout plans of the area and had them scanned at kinkos, and email them to a zoning attorney to see what can be done.
Will Rick be able to finally get a decent arcade going, what about those wrong element - kids that everyone seems to want to avoid, are they infectious? can they be stopped? will the attorney find a loophole, and if Rick gets forced in a retail space, does he get to choose which 1/2 of 1 testicle he gets to keep, so tune in for the next exciting adventure of Rick in Arcade HELL land.
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Finally after 1 year of hunting this bad boy down, i got a Panasonic FZ-35S which is the elusive 3DO M2, I just added it to the collection, along with a Nintendo 3DS added for good measure. Even though i already have Polystars from konami which was the 3DO M2's entry into the arcade forum, it was still nice to have the home version, even though it was never actually realeased for the home only for commercial purposes.
Well very few systems left to go. Here are some images of the FZ-35S for everyone., also just checking, is anyone following this thread, i see alot of people reading it, but no postings other than my own.
Rick
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Here are some pictures of the Tennessee auction. i appoligize if they are not very clear, this was taken from my cell phone in 15 degree weather, so being from miami, i was pretty cold, and trying my hardest to keep the camera still. I hope these can give everyone a look at the sheer size of this auction, They were over 1000 pieces for auction, and we had 2 auctioneers going simulataneously, so you had to be running between 1 and the other to get everything you wanted. It was a very very long weekend, and i went almost 3 days without sleep before finally getting back to miami and unloaded the games, i will try and post pictures of them soon.
Rick
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Well things have been a little nutty lately, it all started with a friend of mine saying his business was slowing down, i had also mentioned to him, mine had been stagnant for a bit also, nothing new seemed to be coming down pipelines, and every business owner i had spoken to in the area was pretty much saying the same thing.
After looking at a few options we started a parnership looking for something new to run with in order to diversify, and to better brace ourselves for possible hard times ahead. I had decided to go to the Arcade auction in tennessee to see if there was anything that i would like, and we ended up buying about 30 more games, and i thought since i now have so many arcade games just sitting around here doing nothing and the economy doesnt seem to be doing any better , at least not in our parts , we are going to attempt to open up an arcade, Now whether this is an insane move or not remains to be seen. But it is doing something i love and sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet. So i held my breath, closed my eyes and jumped.
We just registered the name arcadeodyssey.com, hired a logo company to design a real attention getting logo and the roller coaster ride has begun.
Here are the top logo contenders so far, final decisions will be made tonight, let me know what everyone thinks. You can see better images by clicking on the link,
sometimes you will get x's in the images, it seems to work best with firefox.
Signing off for now,
Rick
PS:oh i almost forgot, I also added a channel f model 2 to the collection.
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Ok, i got another one for the console collectors out there, this is an APF imagination machine, and it is the latest addition to my ever growing collection, those of you who know what this is, will need no further info, i got this one though a great guy call skip at reminisce toy company, this is a shameless plug for him, but if you need old or classic toys give him a buzz at (856) 293-0523 . Also skip here are the pictures of the item working, i had to clean the contacts with deox, but now it works pretty well, i just have to clean the tape heads and try out a tape when i get the chance. For those of you who do not know what this is, click on these links to find out more
I hope everyone enjoys the pics.
Rick
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Ok everyone this update is for the console collectors out there.
My latest updates are "esh's aurunmilla" for the msx ld, you can see a picture of it , along with my entire collection of ld games, for the laseractive, the msx and a couple of arcade ones thrown in for good measure. I am now only missing 1 laserdisc for the msx - "rolling blaster" once i get that one, im officially done with all the msx ld's. I have also added a very rare unisonic champion 2711 serial #154, it is in very good to mint condition, in fact it was in such good condition that it still had the plastic that they put over electronics to protect them, i cant stand that , so i peeled it off, you can see it lying in the corner with the unisonic now being all shiny. I also took a close up picture of "Jimmy the greek" who endorsed this system, and pictures of the Manual, warranty and registration cards. I also got a mint condition viewsonic interactive vision, i thought i would get a second unit in mint condition just to have as a spare, i can always use a good spare unit, just in case. Anyhow on to the pics , Until next time fellow collectors, same arcade place, same arcade channel, excelsior. - "Sorry, I could'nt help that."
Rick
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Hello everyone, i have been pretty busy lately with a projects im working on, But i managed to slip away long enough to do a couple of updates, so here you go,
The first update is for you arcade junkie, "you know who you are", I have just added a Sega crazy taxi sit down and a sammy trophy hunter to the collection, also you will see a picture of my discs of tron with 3 of the tron discs available now for sale at most toy stores, i thought it would look appropiate on the game, let me know what everyone thinks, Also i received another 7 of so control panels you can see them lined up on my wall, these are going to be going on the sega blast city cabs in my garage, you can see a picture of them all standing by waiting to get fixed. You can also see a row of monitors that are being worked on behind the candies, Also my space continues to dwindle down, so i have to put my new game "the act" in "the kitchen" next to "the fridge". I also managed to get both of my sfiv working and linked together, what a great game, anyhow here are some pics, and i'll be posting an update for the console collectors next.
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Just got in an LV-D2000 laser disc player and lo and behold it works with the MSX system, even though it was never listed as a supported player, in fact it works better than the ld-700, Also I have interstellar and Umi Yukaba LD's for the MSX on their way, i will post pictures of the entire setup once they arrive, finally I ended up purchasing a second taito x2, this one was purchased from kingsley over at the coinopstore and even though it got a bit dinged up in transit, he was very fair and offered to replace it immediately, instead i just opted for a discount which he did with no hesitation, great guy to deal with. But with this addition to the collection i was finally able to go ahead and get 2-SFIV kits, and set them up this weekend, great game, I will post pics later on this week.
Rick
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Nice job man! The Act in a blast city cab, very cool!
It is on it's way to the Arcade and pinball expo in ft lauderdale this weekend, i hope every one gets a chance to check it out.
Rick.
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Ok guys finally finished it, the act is now in a sega blast city cabinet, there are a ton of pictures, so i will start at the begining, First i had to go to a metal shop and had them cut a piece of metal to match the original size of the blast city's cp. Once that was completed, I was off to a sign shop and had them scan both the control panel and the marquee graphics, i had them resize both to the proper dimensions in order to fit the blast city,and we had to redesign the control panel's graphics by cutting and pasting a few images to extend the graphics to the proper location of the cp, i wanted the words "the act" all the way to the left, under the original design it puts the T in Act right under the controller, hence the modified graphics. Once it was finished we laminated and installed it onto the metal cp plate, i was ready to proceed. Next i noticed I could not get the controller to fit into such a small control panel as the blast city,Damn, always something, so i tried to take it apart and see if i could do anything else with it to makie it fit better, nope , it would have been a major pain the butt, to rebuild this onto the bottom of the control panel, and i would'nt have felt it was well protected, so after 30 minutes or so of tweaking and moving around the controller under the panel,to see if it would fit better anywhere else under the cp, i finally settled for it being right in the center, where i originally was going to put it anyways, but the problem with that is that there is a mounting screw hole right there on the top of the control panel holder and it would not let me put the controller in, at least not without me cutting the control panel holder itself, which i did not want to do, so my solution to thie problem was to space the controller so the screw holder slides between the controller and the panel. It worked like a charm, however when i bolted it all together, the graphics twisted under the turning pressure of the screw, i tried 2 washer sizes, and finally went my 3rd largest size, yeah i know it's a little big, but it works great and it does not bunch up the graphics no matter how hard i turn the screws on it., I also took pictures of the inside of the arcade system itself, it is basically a pc with an additional board underneath the main motherboard, it seems to be some type of jamma adapter, and security key in one, if you unplug it the game gives you a security violation message and wont play. And there is also an ultimark cga converter board mounted towards the front of the case, So after rebuiling the pc back together, getting the cp finished, and finally installing the marquee. I had to add a surge suppresor inside the cabinet in order to power the arcade pc board, and that is all there is to it. As the french would say, "Simple, No." Well actually no, it was a pain, but i believe the final results look pretty good, im going to be touching up the cab in the next few days and cleaning it up a bit more, and im done. Well onto the pics,they might not be in order, but from reading my post you should be able to tell what your looking at. Comments welcome.
Rick
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Hi guys.
Just wanted to place a report, I have finished four Pac-Man carts today and one Multi-Cart, one more Pac-Man cart to do and then there's the eight Multi-Carts to finish up, two of them is from batch #2.
The first four carts of batch #3 have been promised to get a picture instead of a line of text. That customization will take a little extra time before the final two are done.
If anyone is not eager to get theirs and can wait a little longer, please tell and I'll wait with that until last.
If I can keep the current pace up I'll have all done before the week is over, see first message in thread for current list.
I'll report again as soon as more work has been done, thanks for waiting and thanks for your patience.
Fredrick, i hope 1 multicart and 1 of those pacman are for me,
Rick
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Well guys, i got the control panel cut today for installing "The act" in the sega blast city, the cp and the marquee graphics were not going to fit from the original kit, so i took them into a sign shop to have them scanned, photoshopped and shrunk to the proper dimensions. I will be posting pics soon.
Rick
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Oops almost forgot, i had said i was going to post some pics of the new steel batalion controller and the 2nd fz-35s, i also forgot to mention we also received a nintendo snoopy tabletop, the box on this unit and the steel batalion controller are a bit messed up, but hey a messed up box is better than no box at all, i also included a pic of my handhelds showing the palmtex and the snoopy next to the other nintendo tabletops, i just also won a nintendo donkey kong jr the white version, that will complete my nintendo tabletop collection, so i will post pics once i get it, i am also including a pic of my laserdisc video game collection, this is my collection of laseractive, msx and arcade laserdiscs, im only missing 2 to complete all the laseractive discs, and 1 to complete the msx collection, just real hard to get those last 3. Anyhow here are the pics.