Posted by Tom A. on 17, 2000 at 1:04 PM:
In Reply to: Cool! Please read... posted by Prophet of Retrogames on 17, 2000 at 2:43 AM:
: Is it really in as good as a condition as the photos look? Many scratches, chips, other damage etc.?
It's not in mint condition but considering it is a cabinet that came from a working arcade, yes it is in good condition. There are some minor blemishes on the unit but nothing that I would consider major. The worst part on mine at least is the marquee holder which is bent. I hope to be able to remove it once I get my special screwdriver tool. One other thing, the monitor has some scratches on it that are quite noticeable if you look at it just the right way. But so far, for the few hours that my wife and I played Blockout, we didn't notice the scratches during gameplay.
BTW, I don't think I mentioned it but the cabinet is made out of metal and plastic. The only piece of wood I've seen so far is the JAMMA pcb mounting board. It is removable if need be.
: 1) Is it really only 28" wide? I mean is that number 100% precise at the widest point? Because my front door has no more than 29" clearance and if I got that cab, if it's truly not more than 28" then it would fit through. 29" and it won't. If you could double check your measurements I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Sure, no problem, I understand your concern. I double checked and it's hard to get an exact measurement due to the rounded edges. Anyway, to be safe, I would say it is 28 1/2" wide. My garage door that I came in was plenty wide but I was concerned about getting it in my computer room which is really just a small bedroom. The room is off a 36" wide hallway. The clearance of the door to the room was 29 1/4". Sure I could have removed the inside jams (I think that's what you call 'em) but I was hoping not too. The guy told me the cabinet was 29" wide but I was able to fit it right through without removing the packing. My major concern was that he told me it was 40" deep and that was gonna be tricky making a 90 degree turn off a 36" wide hallway. I have a utility closet nearly opposite the computer room with sliding doors and I was ready to remove those doors to use the room to swing. The last resort was the full size window. I WAS gonna get this thing in THAT room, wife insisted. ;-> Anyway, the cabinet was less deep than he mentioned and it swung right in without removing the closet doors. Oh, I should mention that I removed the computer room door from it's hinges prior to getting the unit because when the door was fully opened it still blocked the passage way and I know it would have gotten in the way. That was a breeze.
All the above info was my longwinded way of saying that you shouldn't have any problems getting it through your front door. Worse comes to worse, you can remove the door from its hinges if you need more room. BTW, 29" is pretty narrow for a front door, maybe you are not counting the extra clearance you could get from removing the door?
: 2) What material is the CP? I ask because I wonder if it's a difficult material to work on? Plastic is easy to drill holes etc. but metal, I know nothing about working on metal. :(
It's mostly plastic. Actually, it's all plastic except for the metal faceplate on top of the control panel and the vertical metal support frame...you can see these in the pictures of the opened CP. If you want to keep the faceplate, you will have to cut through a thin layer of metal. It will be a while yet before I get to the panel, but I think I will remove the entire panel, actually, it's two pieces, the main one with the controls and than a blank small panel that says "optional border" and replace it with a wood panel(s) perhaps. This way I can put the original one back if I screw up REAL bad. : Anyway, it also looks to be a wonderful JAMMA cab - personally I'd love to collect some real arcade boards for it if I had it. Emus are great but the real thing is still unbeatable, if only for the psychological aspect. :) Yes, if I had unlimited funds, this would definitely be the way to go. I must say it was nice to plug in the Blockout JAMMA board I bought and it fired up right away. Hey, I tested the red and white RCA jacks I found in the bottom of the cabinet last night. They are indeed line inputs (even though the schematic says they are outputs...which made no sense to me...) so I won't have to hack my sound cables, just plug 'em into my SB64 line out jacks...Sweet! I had to move the speaker output from the audio amp from mono out to stereo out for these inputs to work. I tested it last night from my computer's CD drive (audio disc) and it worked. I was picking up some noise somewhere which hopefully I can eliminate or at least reduce. One step at a time. -Tom A.