Hey everyone, Rees here, and welcome to another episode of ctrl-alt-rees.
As you can see we have a bit of a change of scenery for this one, and the reason for that
is because I wanted to show you my arcade cabinet.
I thought it would be really interesting just to put a video together just telling the story
of how I came to be in possession of this cab just over 10 years ago, and show you my
initial attempt at restoring it from an empty shell just using the very basic tools that
I had available to me at the time.
I also want to show you the results of a more recent restoration and upgrade that I've started
on - as you can see it's not quite finished - and ask for your opinions and suggestions
on stuff that I can add that could perhaps
make it into an even better retro gaming experience.
So let me take you back, over 10 years ago, to January 2009. I was living in my own house
for the first time ever (well, technically my girlfriend / future wife’s house, and
it was rented) and we were both working full time jobs. So what better time to finally
fulfil a dream that I’d had for many years - to own my very own arcade cabinet.
So I found myself on ebay, of course, and found a nice little lot of 3 empty cabs. I
stuck in a bid - and won all 3 for £13.07. After making arrangements with the seller,
who happened to be about 10 miles away, I booked a day off of work, and a friend with
a big estate car was roped in to help collect.
It turned out that the seller’s company was involved in clearing out a local arcade
years ago, and that he was now selling his house and needed to get rid of the 3 empty
arcade cabs that had somehow ended up in his garage.
I won’t repeat what the other half said when she got home from work that day, but
thankfully at least the other 2 surplus cabs - a Radio Times quiz machine and little bartop
thing which I really wish I’d kept - had already made their way to the tip. Incidentally,
that Radio Times quiz machine was locked, and when we busted it open we discovered it
had £15 in change rattling around in the bottom, meaning that the cabs basically ended
up costing -£2.
Although of course I let my friend keep that as petrol money.
The Videostar MkII was an interesting beast, with chunky gold t-molding, and a detachable
control panel designed for 2 joysticks and, oddly, square fruit machine style buttons,
which I’d later learn would be something of a hallmark for this manufacturer.
So what’s the story behind this cab and the company that made it? Well, surprisingly
enough, it was only very recently that I actually managed to find any information on it at all.
Europa Coin were a British manufacturer of arcade cabinets, taking their name from the
industrial estate in Kent where the company was based. I’ve managed to find a few similar
cabs for sale online, including this one on Facebook marketplace a few years back, and
another similar one on ebay.
Apart from that there really hasn’t been a lot out there over the last 10 years, or
at least there wasn’t until this one came up for sale on the UK Video Arcade Collectors
forum in 2017.
The really interesting thing about this is the picture of the flyer showing
the different models, and although mine’s branded as a Videostar MkII, the original
Videostar here looks identical.
Also it’s interesting to see that every single game featured on this flyer was released
in 1988, and the original listing is for a game called Crude Buster which was released
in 1991. It seems to have Europa Coin branding on the surround and the marquee, meaning that
this isn’t a later conversion.
I’ve read elsewhere that these cabinets conformed to the Japanese JAMMA standard,
and that Europa Coin also sold official conversion kits for various new games as they were released.
Anyway, back on to my cab. I had very limited tools, basically just a drill, but bought
a complete arcade kit from X-Arcade and managed to talk a local shopfitter friend-of-a-friend
into routing out the control panel and a matching piece of acrylic, which I then assembled and
wired myself. He also made an internal shelf for a spare 21” CRT PC monitor that I’d
been donated, which I dremeled the front off of to make it fit the bezel that I’d scavenged
from that Radio Times quiz machine. Yeah, I know… But bear in mind that this was over
10 years ago when you couldn’t even give these things away.
I also sanded and resprayed the whole thing in the garden.
On the software side, I set up my old Core 2 Duo Mac Mini with Windows XP and a very
basic arcade frontend called MameWah, which matched the classic look I had in mind. Well
that was pretty much it, and the cab moved house with us and took pride of place in the
dining room of our current house, and served us well for years, getting fired up and played
with regularly… In fact here’s a video demo recorded back in 2015.
Fast forward to 2018 - well, the monitor died and, with 7 years of DIY experience under
my belt, as well as a garage full of power tools, I hatched a plan to transform the Videostar
MkII into the machine I’d dreamed of all those years ago.
I decided to start with a complete rewire, replacing the original fluorescent tube with
some much brighter and more reliable LED strips, and the tired old speakers with some much
better car speakers I bought online. I also fitted a power button on top, which is wired
directly into the PC’s motherboard. For now the backlight, amp and monitor all switch
off at the wall, but maybe this is something that could be improved.
The control panel got a complete overhaul, with brand new genuine Sanwa ball top arcade
sticks replacing the clunky old X-Arcade ones, some much quieter microswitches, and the addition
of a USB SpinTrak spinner from Ultimarc, which is absolutely ideal for games like Tempest
and Arkanoid. I went with woodgrain vinyl for the final finish. Maybe I’d been watching
too many LGR videos at the time.
As I was getting tired of having to hook up a keyboard for the most basic of functions,
I also added dedicated function buttons for exit, select, pause, and the MAME config menu,
but I added some USB ports underneath for a keyboard if needed, and these can also be
used for USB controllers for up to 4 player games.
I also put the amp with the volume control behind what would usually be the coin door,
to make adjusting the volume easy.
I set it all up with an old frontend called Maximus Arcade as well as a few emulators
which all work great, but the frontend is something I might change if I can find something
better. I’d ideally like something with a very basic and classic look to it rather
than being flashy and over the top, which I think rules out Hyperspin, although perhaps
that can be skinned to give the effect I’m after.
By the way, I’m well aware that the monitor is a bit on the dim side, and it makes a horrible
arcing noise when it’s warming up too. I’m going to be replacing the flyback transformer
and recapping it in future, which should hopefully fix the issues. It is possible to get it to
focus but it drifts out again before too long, so hopefully a service will sort it out. It
was working great when I first got it so I assume the issues are just due to wear and
tear.
Anyway, on the hardware side this cab has a few tricks up its sleeve - but this is easily
my favourite. The spinner knob can be removed in a couple of seconds using a small allen
key, and replaced with this steering wheel. The joysticks have these quick release collars
fitted, so getting the P2 stick out of the way is no problem at all.
In conjunction with
the pedals I also added, this makes this cab great for driving games like Outrun and even
Ridge Racer.
I modified the coin mechanism to add some microswitches to act as the insert coin buttons
- I’ll show you how those work when we take a look inside in a moment. Incidentally, this
coin mechanism is from a genuine Atari Pit Fighter cab.
So without further ado, I think it’s time to open this up, and the first step is to
remove the control panel using these 8 allen screws.
Incidentally, my original plan was to have interchangeable panels with things like trackballs
and light guns, and with that in mind I designed the control panel to be modular, with everything
plugged in for easy removal.
On the back you can see the buttons, the joysticks with their 8-way restrictor plates, which
could be changed for 4 or even 2-way for different types of games. The interface for the sticks
and buttons is my old Ultimarc PS/2 MiniPAC which plugs in using USB. It’s always worked
great so didn’t seem worth changing. Over this side is the much newer USB controller
for the spinner.
The insert coin buttons connect to these two wires.
Taking the front panel off we see the monitor, which is a 19” Tatung Type 58 SVGA model
from one of those Megatouch quiz machines you see in pubs. It originally had the touchscreen
overlay glued to the front, which was a monumental effort to remove cleanly but I got there in
the end.
Originally I intended to fit a 20” Sony PVM, but it wasn’t suitable for any of the
later, higher resolution games I wanted to play and besides, it seemed like a waste of
a good PVM that I could otherwise use with my old consoles. It was a bit too deep for
the cab anyway.
One thing I need to get to finish this off is a suitable screen bezel. I tried the smoked
acrylic route but took it out as the monitor got dimmer, and besides, in the sunlight it
basically acted as a mirror so it wasn’t ideal.
While I was in there I also completely changed the way the monitor mounted, angling it upwards
to make the cab more comfortable to play when standing, and adding an extra panel at the
top to fill the gap. This also necessitated completely changing the way the control panel
fit.
While I was in there I added a lot more internal bracing to make the cab as solid as possible,
and solid it certainly is - although it’s also incredibly heavy. Thankfully it does
have wheels on the back.
Opening up the bottom half, you can see the strange way that I’ve cut this out with
the bottom of the coin box basically floating. There was a good reason behind this - I wanted
to leave as much material in the bottom part as I could so the pedals had something solid
to clamp on to. Now you can also see the back of the coin mechanism - this was originally
much more complex and mechanical, but I removed all of that and fitted two microswitches with
some bright red LEDs for the buttons.
There is a shelf that fits here giving quite a useful storage space, but the PC ended up
being slightly taller that I’d anticipated so it doesn’t currently fit. I will get
around to moving the supports, of course.
The PC is whatever the top of the range i3 was a few years back - MAME is only single
threaded anyway - and although I bought an arcade graphics card for it, I found that
the integrated graphics worked quite happily at 800x600, even under Windows 10. It has
an 80GB SSD for the OS and a 1TB mechanical SATA drive for everything else.
Onto the pedals, which were from a game called Speed Up, apparently. These connect using
a U-HID nano from Ultimarc, with the accelerator being analogue with a potentiometer and the
brake being digital with a microswitch. It would be easy to upgrade the brake pedal to
a potentiometer in future but I haven’t got around to it yet.
Finally, there are just a couple of cosmetic touches to address on the outside - I’ll
need some new t-molding, which is easy enough, and I’ll also need to finish off the sides.
I’d primed these ready for some more filling and sanding, and was thinking about eventually
painting them plain black. But maybe there’s something better?
At least the back panel that I added works well, and adds a lot of rigidity to the cab.
I only used it for about 10 years without one. Access to the back is only really needed
for adjusting the monitor, so hopefully once that’s sorted I won’t be removing it too
often.
So thanks for joining me, I hope you enjoyed the story so far.
If you have any ideas or suggestions for this cab I'd love to hear them so please do let
me know down in the comments.
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So thankyou very much for joining me and I'll hopefully see you again next time.