What news is there in the city? Have the proud woo-ers by this time come home from their ambush, or are they still watching for me where they were, to take me on my homeward way?
Homer (The Odyssey, Book 16)
Greetings fellow arcade enthusiasts, and welcome back to my humble blog. Prepare to go ‘Woo’, for I bring news…
According to WordPress.com, Arcade Odysseus has been troubling the blogosphere for 520,960 minutes. That’s a whole lot of minutes. But what it means #IRL is that this site has now been up and running for a whole year!!!
‘Woo!’ and dare I say, ‘Hoo!’
So, many happy returns to Arcade Odysseus, but – more importantly – many thanks to all you lovely, lovely, wonderful readers for keeping me company on my journey.
We’ve covered quite a distance, haven’t we?
I’m not just talking about the 8,000 miles from the Glens of Pictavia to Funspot, NH, and back. There are also the strange aeons of time we’ve crossed in our joint quest to return to the Golden Age of video arcade games.
To celebrate, I thought I should introduce you to my twins. OK, so they’re not human, and they entered my world two years apart. But there are two of them!
I’ve already covered their protracted gestation, here, in a tale that’s bound to strike a chord with more than a few of you VACers. To cut a long story short, my attempts to get hold of a real-life, old-school, video-arcade cabinet for my own home began in 2007. For various reasons, it was late 2010 before I could put any serious effort into the project, and 2012 before it came to fruition.
Twin number one arrived in April of that year. As you can see, his name is Rob O’Tron. And what a fine, strapping example of an Electrocoin Goliath Mark 3 he is. Twin number two joined us almost 2 years later, in May 2014. His name is Donnie K. Conn.
Compared to many collectors, my shrine to the gods of arcades past is meagre.
In an ideal world, and an ideal games room, I’d want hunners (= ‘a lot’) of the things. I reckon I’d ‘need’ a few of my favourite dedicated cabs, some pinball tables, and enough generic JAMMA cabs to cover all the control variations, from joystick, steering wheel and spinner to flight yoke, flight stick, and light gun.
What I have is a compromise. It fills the space available – in terms of room, and spousal tolerance (!). From my perspective, it also serves as a striking and emotive art installation that recalls an important moment in time, culture, and my own life journey. Goliaths FTW!
Beyond that, it lets me play horizontal and vertical games without any hassle whatsoever 😉
The Beauty Parlour
I may only have two cabs, but as I’m sure you’ll all appreciate, the scope to tinker, tweak, and tamper is not only limitless but very difficult to resist.
First up is the ‘ritual cleansing’.
Something that never ceases to amaze me, is the number of folk selling L@@K!!R@RE!!!! arcade kit, who don’t seem to know about cloths or soapy water. You see, I like to look after my stuff. And I don’t want huge hulking great objects d’art in my house covered in grime. But that’s fine, I find the cleaning aspect of the hobby therapeutic. For me, the process was similar to those guys cleaning carpets on YouTube. Don’t get me wrong, the machines were clean to the touch when they came in. But decades of accumulated dust, dirt and cigarette smoke were laminated onto the surface – especially on the inside. That had to go.
After several gallons of warm soapy water, and a thorough airing, the scrapes, gouges and bumps on the outside were filled and touched-in.
I used acryllic model paint. While easy to blend and apply, it has faded over the years. I’ll need to redo the dings at some point, and maybe, when I do, I’ll spray over the top-coat with some UV-resistant anti-fade spray. It seems to work well enough on ink-jet photos, so it should do the job on the cabs. While I was doing this, I also used a black sharpie to touch in the cracks and creases on the black monitor shrouds. Hidden behind the glass bezel, the now look as good as new.
Next up, the metalwork was in need of a refresh. While there isn’t very much of it, getting the top coat dry without an effing insect landing on it, leading to a rub-down and respray was… challenging.
The coin doors, while OK, weren’t set up to let me use the big 10 pence pieces I enjoyed in my youth. So out they came, to be replaced with twin-slot doors, cut to accommodate low-maintenance S10 coin mechanisms.
While doing this, I sanded the black paint-work back to the metal, which reminded me of the doors on old Williams’ cabs like Defender. So I polished them up and left ’em like that. After fitting some new bulbs to the coin return buttons, I replaced all the barrel locks with new, keyed-alike mechs – which are far more convenient for a ome setup.
In those days, when it was easier and often cheaper getting spare parts from the States, I sourced a some replacement coin slot bezels from a stateside seller. A bit of scanning and photoshop later, and Y100 became 10p. At the same time, I bagged me a pile of old 10 pees off eBay – enough to generate the familiar ‘chink’ that followed the dropping of a coin through the slot.
Buttons were removed, cleaned, bleached, and then polished! Leaf-switches were refurbished and fine-tuned, and the monitors recapped, with burnt-in tubes eventually switched out for shinier, cleaner versions. Getting hold of those tubes, however, was nowhere near as easy or as quick as I would have liked. In fact, one of them still isn’t perfect (if anyone has a burn and scratch free 19″ screen compatible with Hantarex boards, that they no longer need, please drop me a line!).
Of course, the maquees had to be swapped out too. This presented me with a quandry. Which artwork should I use? Tonnes of the acade games I like have eye-catching marquees. Loads of them are reproduced in glorious, touched-up technicolour by Tim Nicholls in his excellent 2015 compendium, Artcade: The Book of Classic Arcade Art. However, to my mind, not all of these were suitable for their designated space, or the curatorial dimension of my ‘installation’. So I went for marquees with recognisably classic vibes. My thinking was tha they should have clean lines and bright colours, and come from games that I liked. My initial choices were Robotron and Defender.
At the time, the easiest – and cheapest – way to do this was to source high resolution scans off the internet, tidy them up in an art package, and print them out on heavy duty photo paper on the A0 plotter at work. Years later, when forum celebrity Muddy Music had set up his Arcade Art Shop, I grabbed myself some perspex replacements. This time round, however, I swapped Defender for Donkey Kong on my vertical cab. Classic game! Shame I’m still no good at it…
Like the marquees themselves, marquee lights don’t last forever. These days, a lot of collectors are swapping them out for LEDs. I’ve stayed with CFL for now, but have had to replace tubes and starters – which are all still available online.
That brings us on to the joysticks – which are a crucial part of the arcade experience. None of this ‘gamepad’ nonsense for me. Not even on my 1980s consoles! That’s right. I’ll always rock an arcade stick in preference to a gamepad. Pah!!!
My first cab came with ‘asymmetic’ sticks – as captured by my kids in an early piece of visual art! That would never do. They had to be replaced asap.
First up were a pair of Happ ‘bat-top’ sticks from the States. At the time, that was cheaper than buying them in the UK. They were fine for most things, but not what I needed for Robotron. Luckily, not long afterwards, I was able to bag 3 leaf-switched Wico sticks on the now defunct JAMMA+ forum.
The shafts were pretty rusty, but nothing a quick whizz in a drill couldn’t cure, when Brasso and wire wool were applied. A similar process sorted out the dings and scratches on the plastic knobs, with the help of Novus 123, and some fine-grade wet’n’dry sandpaper. To complete the revitalised look, I visited ArcadeShop.de for some NOS grommets and dust washers.
Later, when cab number two was having it’s beauty treatment, I was able to find a Cyprus-based seller on eBay with a pile of NOS Wico sticks. The price delivered was $112. In those days, that was about £75 in total, for two sticks and postage!!!
A quick note on Wicos. Many keyboards have been hammered to dust by ‘forumites’ evangelising the importance of a 4″ shaft when playing Robotron (oo err missus!). As a result, they’ve been rare and difficult to get hold of for a decade. I reckon at least part of that stick schtick was to shill the market.
But here’s the thing: if you have a dedicated Williams’ Robotron cab, where the control panel is packed with 1/2 inch ply (into which a shallow rebate for the joysticks is routed), the shafts protrude around 3 1/2 ” from the outer surface. If, however, you have an Electrocoin JAMMA cab, where the joysticks are bolted directly under the 2 mm mild-steel control panel, the far more common 3 1/2″ shafts also stick about 3 1/2″ above the outer surface. You heard it here first kids. For authentic Robotron gameplay, you don’t necessarily need 4″ sticks. Check your control panel before dropping a fortune on eBay treasures!
The more I started getting back into my arcade favourites, the more I realised that when it came to vertical games, Golden Age titles just can’t be enjoyed the way they were intended without a 4-way restrictor gate. Technically, Wicos can be switched between 4-way and 8-way, but TBH, it’s a bit of a bollâche, as the French (don’t) say. The solution for easy 4-8-way switching? A pair of Ultimarc Mag Stick Plus joysticks – with ball-top handles. If you have a Goliath, you’ll need an adaptor plate to mount them (the interweb is your friend here). But once they’re in, it’s just lift, twist, and away you go. It makes quite a difference.
My final tweak – so far (!) – was to refurbish the control panels. I’d already picked up a pair of Wico LS-30 rotary sticks, so I could enjoy Rambo-inspired shooters like Ikari Warriors. Rather than mucking about with swapping joysticks in and out, I decided to find a spare control panel and keep them permenantly fitted. While I was at it, I also took the opportunity to replace the CPO (control panel overlay). Like the marquees, this came from the Arcade Art Shop.
When I have a spare day (or two!), the other two control panels will be getting the same treatment. I know a lot of you arcadists are keen on showcasing your cabs’ battle scars. I’m coming round to the idea that a storied appearance can look good on a dedicated cab. For Electrocoins, however, I want mine to look the way I remember them from bitd – minty fresh and polished to within an inch of their electronic lives! In the meantime, I’ve swapped out the rusty old coach bolts securing the joysticks for some shiney, shiney stainless-steel replacements. NB: when fitting these, you need to press down had on the top of the bolt with something rubbery when tightening the nut, otherwise, it’ll rotate and ruck up your CPO. That’s not a good look!
To finish up, here are some shots of the cabs just after they came in:
Here they are again after their refurbs, almost 10 years ago:
And here they are again yesterday!
Games
‘[G]od soon gave us game to satisfy our hearts’
Homer (The Odyssey, Book 9)
Compared to most collectors, I don’t have a lot of PCBs. Just a few favourites, including the best game of all time… Rygar. Obviously. I also have a few multi boards, including the outstanding JROK Williams FPGA board, for authentic Robotron action. Other boards have come and gone over the years, because, basically, I don’t have any sensible places to keep them. What I have done is invest in a couple of inline Volt-meters, to be sure that my PCBs can be tuned to run under optimum conditions.
For reasons of convenience, most of my gaming has been done on MAME via PCs and Ultimarc J-PAC adaptors. For the first few years, I used (really!) old office PCs running Windows XP, MAME and the MALA frontend. That was fine… to an extent. MALA is uncluttered, simple, and easy to use. To shut down safely, however, you needed an extra, dedicated button, which is a bit of a pain. But I was able to fit one – discretely – to the top of the cab.
Frustratingly, the first few PCs failed after a year or so. Good job they were free! That could be because they were ancient and at the end of their natural lives anyway. But I was suspiscious that steam from the kitchen may have been intefering with their innards. As a precaution, I started keeping a couple of disposable moisture traps in the electronics section of the cabs. It could be a coincidence, but since then – maybe 8 or 9 years ago – nothing has failed.
Not long after that, I invested in one of 2Huwman’s Linux-based Mini Kab systems. It was great while it lasted. Fast-booting, reliable, and straightforward. Once I’d ugraded my switching PSU to 4A on the 12V line, it could run without a separate PSU. Sadly, in early 2020, it perished in a freak cat-tralated accident and had to be replaced. These days I run older, USFF PCs running Groovymame, on builds compiled by the initimitable Mr JonnyG. That guy is a hero!
Epilogue
I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of my little home arcade. I’ve certainly enjoyed the machines. They’ve been a regular fixture at gatherings and parties, and especially popular with the kids. My own kids have grown up with them. They may have moved on to more modern things, but at least they know their gaming history. And they’re under strict instructions. When their old dad finally pops his clogs, they can keep one of the machine if they like. But the other one is to have the gubbins removed, and used as a vessel for my final journey – to the great Amusement Arcade in the sky…
What else should I do to my Goliaths? How else could I tweak them for the ultimate arcade experience? Please leave you thoughts, recommendations and tips in the comments section below!
Arcade Odysseus 
Great stuff. These Electrocoin cabs seem to be making a resurgence amongst collectors in the UK. You couldn’t give them away a few years back! Your post is proof positive that you don’t need to own 10 arcade cabinets to scratch the itch! 2Human’s minikabs are excellent pieces of kit – I have one here.
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Thank you kindly, Sir. You’re quite right. You don’t need a lot of machines to enjoy the arcade experience at home, which is just as well… 2 is the max I can get away with! On the Electrocoin front, while they were absolutely everywhere in the 1980s, they do seem to be genuinely rare nowadays. I suspect that one collector in particular may bear some of the responsibility for that. To be fair, however, he does keep his machines in pretty good condition, and make them available for the public to enjoy!
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These cabs are so iconic. They were everywhere bitd, especially in the trailers of the travelling fairs that came to our city every half term. Of course this meant that so many of those Goliaths lived a hard life, so the condition of your twins really stands out. They look very much at home, at home, with you and your family, and it’s always great to see young kids playing on the arcade cabinets/games that filled our own childhood.
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Cheers Neil. Absolutely. From the mid 80s to the early 90s, Goliaths were everywhere. You always seemed to see them in rows of 4, or 5 (or more!) too. For some reason, when my brother and I got the chance to go to proper, big, arcades, we would often be the first ones in, when the cleaning ladies were still having at the Goliaths with their cans of Mr Sheen. So, that’s the vibe I’m going for at home! And yes, it was nice to see the kiddles enjoying the cabs. But now they’ve got bigger, they’ve moved on to other things. Which is as it should be, of course. Oh well, good job I’m still here holding the fort!
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