Reliving the Arcade: Making your own home arcade

[SanAndreasX]

HoloDust said:

SanAndreasX said:

I can kind of agree with both sides here. I'd love to have a JAMMA multi-arcade cabinet, and I've thought about buying The Simpsons Arcade 1UP machine. But I'd be less likely to buy arcade games that are already available on Arcade Archives, the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, or Capcom Arcade Stadium. 

That said, if Arcade 1UP announced a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet with DK, Mario Bros, and other Nintendo classics, I'd be all over that despite having the AA versions of those games, simply because I've always loved the design of the DK arcade cabinet. I even built a miniature Donkey Kong arcade machine using a kit that let me build one using a Raspberry Pi. 

Yeah, I'd love to have one of those multi-arcade cabinets, specifically for some vertical screen Golden Age games, and one for some later stuff (though I don't play much of those, except for Metal Slug, Raiden and few others).

The thing is, I have yet to see one from some of the companies specializing in making those that is built around CRT screen, and not LCD/LED. Admittedly, I don't follow extensively this area, so maybe some exist, but all I could ever find was homemade DYI, and honestly, I have neither time or expertise for such thing.

I don't think there are any facilities out there that manufacture CRTs anymore, and a diminishing supply of used ones that could be used to build a CRT cabinet. Even 20 years ago, I first started seeing people who operated arcade games replacing their CRTs with LCD panels. So if you want a CRT machine, you're most likely going to have to DIY and would have to really hunt for parts for it. A lot of the old CRTs for arcades likely have decades of burn-in. I remember seeing arcade burn-in back in the 1980s, when you'd see the ghosts of high scores burnt into the phosphor coating.