Posted by Jason on 14, 2000 at 9:31 AM:
I sent the following message to the "web admin" and sales department at arcade technologies and I thought some might find the replies interesting yet disappointing:
"Could you tell me what kind of video card you are using to run a Windows 98
PC with a traditional arcade monitor?
Thank you for any help you can provide.
Jason"
They replied with the following messages:
(webadmin)
"Hello Jason!
Our demonstration unit was not using a "traditional arcade monitor" in the
sense I think you are asking about.
A couple of years ago, Microsoft proposed a gaming standard which was
intended to move arcade hardware from running on a proprietary platform to
running on a standard pc. We installed a pc in an old enclosure and updated
its monitor to a VGA unit designed for arcade games in preparation for the
infamous "drop-test".
Our sister company, FastPoint Technologies, is the largest light pen
manufacturer in the world, so we know quite a bit about video. Yet, we were
not able to produce a decent image when converting a standard EGA card to
work with the old one. Therefore we decided to put this brand new monitor
($189.00) in, knowing we would end up destroying it when it hit the ground.
That is what you see exploding on our website.
To try and answer your question, over the years several standards were used
including; RGB, CGA/EGA and most recently VGA. There are also many older
proprietary interfaces out there. I would suggest that the easiest way for
you to solve your problem, if you are intending to gut an old arcade
machine, is to replace the monitor with one of the current units available
from an arcade supply company like Happ Controls at
http://www.happcontrols.com/ . You might also try contacting the arcade
game's manufacturer for information, if they are using some proprietary
system.
I hope that I have provided some help.
Good Luck!
Fred Burgess
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Frederick J. A. Burgess FredB@fastpoint-tech.com |
| FastPoint Technologies, Inc. 800-962-3900 ext. 386 |
| 8381 Katella Ave 714-484-6386 |
| Stanton, CA 90680 714-995-3989 - fax |
| http://www.fastpoint-tech.com |
|----------------------------------------------------------|
| FastPoint is the successor co. to FTG Data Systems |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
and (Sales Dept)
"Jason,
I only know of two sources.
http://www.videologic.com/ProductInfo/R-CadeVision.htm
and http://www.quantum3d.com
David
David Lippincott
President
'Continuing Innovation'
Chassis Plans, Inc. 619-521-0101 521-0676 Fax
4194 Palisades Road dlippincott@chassis-plans.com
San Diego, CA 92116 http://www.chassis-plans.com"
Although this seems to be a dead end for me I thought maybe someone else could use this information to advance the hobby in some way.