Keatah

I clearly remember the Atari 400/800 being the perfect arcade companion and alternate computing platform, and used it right alongside my Apple II+ and //e back then. We all know the super hits that were.. like Defender, Star Raiders, Centipede, Galaxian, Qix, Pole Position, and so many more.
I soured on the 5200 after getting one and rapidly discovering the software was essentially the same as what I had on the 400/800. Really soured. And upset at the money I spent on it. Combine that with ratbaggy controllers and weird switchbox (which tied me to one TV), and I wasn't spending a lot of time on it. Certainly not enough time to develop nostalgia like I did with other unique platforms.
Today the best part of the 5200 is the styling and futurism about it. That's still memorable and desirable. And in a big expansive living room entertainment center it fits well. On a small shelf not so much.
Since I do vintage gaming almost exclusively via emulation, I rely on Altirra to bring me the 8-bit goodness. When playing I sometimes don't even know the 400/800 vs 5200 version of any game. But I do gravitate away from the analog controller versions. Prefer the crisp digital switching of plain'ol switches.

Sure, the first early versions are retro. So yes.
But the last build is less than a month old. So no.

What a pain in the ass question! Presently I will have to go with Star Raiders, Doom, and X-Plane.
Of course I wanted to cheat and say my favorite hypervisor/virtualizer, which would open it up to all PC software and emulators..!

It's that tower of power.

😎Yay! Finally my little “retro gaming” corner is pretty much complete! The first image displaying Dragon Spirit on my TG-16 is the final setup after cleaning, rewiring and organizing.

Middle image with SuperNES Lemmings displayed was starting to come together, added the little BOSE SPEAKER which packs more punch then the tinny sounding TV speakers, I compared and it provides the rich deep arcade cabinet sound which compliments this sharp little Toshiba crt. 
Also, added a nice AV SWITCHER with blue LED display, I’ve had it for years doing very little with it, I like it as it match’s the TV and even my Retrobit RetroTrio which are all silver for that classic electronics aesthetic.

The last image is what I started with, a mess, cluttered, dusty, unorganized but I spent the day with the goal of getting this long overdue project completed. Finally satisfied overall, it’s not much but at least it’s something! 

I have literally no room for my hobby stuff but this tiny little retro gaming corner is at least something and I got SNES/Genesis/NES covered with the RetroTrio with a Tg-16 underneath and Everdrives carts for all of them. With this setup I can easily add in my Dreamcast or Ps1/Ps2/GameCube etc when needed. I look forward to actually playing and enjoying my systems.

So a buddy of mine calls me up and asked me if I wanted his non working Ms Pac-Man cab. The deal was that if I fixed it, he could play it whenever he came down, which I had no problem with. This is what the cab looked like when I got it. 

The cab was pretty beat up. Just running my hand across the sides made the paint fall off of it. Someone had painted the entire cab black. 

As you can see the cab was in pretty bad shape. So even before I tried to make the thing actually work, I painted it black. I primered it first before doing so. 



At this point I actually tried to make it work. I found some wires that looked like they were spliced into. I figured these were the connections for power. There was no power plug when I got it. I got a PC power cable, cut the end off and spliced it into the existing cuts in the wiring. When I plugged it in, it powered on...however with some problems..

The screen was all distorted. I had found 10 different knobs in the back of the arcade. I turned all of them to see if it would fix it. Nothing did. I thought maybe they all have to be dialed in perfect. After 3 days of messing with these knobs, I was getting frustrated. I was staring at the back of the cab when I saw this metal bracket with a hole in it. I shined a flashlight through the hole and I saw a potentiometer with a screwdriver slot on it. I grabbed a screwdriver and turned it clockwise and it made it worse. So I went counterclockwise all the way and it made the screen totally clear! ...with some minor distorted on the right part of the screen . Just had to slightly turn it back clockwise to get rid of the distortion 

After that I spent a few minutes to dial in the colors properly. 
At this point, I got a proper power cable for the cab and installed it. 
The control panel overlay was pretty dirty and torn so that got replaced. Put some new buttons too.

When I got done with that, I wanted to go all out. I ended up getting a repro glass bezel and installed it. The repro is very high quality. Very happy with it. 

My friend had got this thinking if he couldn't fix it, he was going to keep the Marquee and get rid of it. Knowing that I got this machine for free, I got a new Marquee and gave him the original. Got a high score save kit as well.

Last thing I got was the panel art and new T molding. When I got the art in, I realized that if I were to install the front part as is, the coin door chop off the forehead of Ms. Pac-Man. So I had to raise the coin door 4.5 inches.
 

I also was able to hide the bolts that hold the coin bucket in place below the surface of the wood so I didn't have to shove them to the front of the artwork. Once that was done I installed the art along with the new t molding. When I installed the cab was finally finished!

I wish the color of the panel art was a closer match to the control panel overlay, but in the end, I think it came out pretty awesome. I'm forever grateful that my buddy gave me this arcade. It's definitely in my top 3 favorite arcade games of all time. It was a lot of work putting this thing together
Here's a side by side of the before and after!

 
 

These are the ones I posted in AA: 
1.  Mr. Do!
2.  Crystal Castles
3.  Food Fight
Someone posted these and I have to say, great way to cheat:  NamcoMuseum, Midway Arcade Origins and Atari Anthology

It will take some thought, but I'm definitely taking my all-time favorite #1 game....Portal 2 for PC. 

I agree with @Justinthat this is an excellent topic! It will definitely take some thought.

EXCELLENT topic @MaximumRD!! I'm going to have to give this one some thought... For my picks, I imagine Out Run (arcade) and California Games (Atari Lynx) will have to be up there somewhere.

Mirroring a topic on AA by  member Cobra Kai as I am curious what the answers might be here 😉😎
You can have 3 video games to play for the rest of your life. What are they?
I suspect my choices will be different then most but it seems though I been around pretty much through the history of gaming and play everything from various classics to the occasional modern PC and many indie games, I can instantly think of 3 games I have returned to over and over through the years right up to this day so it would only make sense to choose those. There is no real rhyme or reason for my picks or the platforms I'd choose except maybe for something in my subconscious that gives me nostalgia from my original experiences. The 3 I would pick are: 
 1. Resident Evil Directors Cut - PlayStation 
2. Mr. Do! - ColecoVision
3. Side Pocket - I love every version from NES / Genesis / Snes but I will go with the GENESIS overall. 
 

😆Definitely a smart way to get around some limitations. 

I'm thinking that may be my #3 as well @TrekMD
Can we all agree "no cheating" on this question with answers like "Namco Collection" 😂

I was going to say "Sim Raft Builder" because I assume this is due to being stuck on a desert island or something. 
 

Star Raiders (5200), Salamander (Famicom), Xybots (Lynx)

This is a rough one!  I don't really play games much anymore, but list would have to be
1) Thetris (Atari 5200) Tetris Port
2) Borzork (TI-99/4A) Berzerk Port
3) ----- CURRENTLY NO CLUE -----

Retro emulating retro. Interesting concept. :O)

Wow, 25 years! So does that mean that MAME itself is retro 🤔

I've been thinking hard about how to emulate the controls for TRON.  Is there a spinner that works with MAME? 

Just seen this video posted and had to share, I still to this day fire up MAME and randomly pick games, some classics, some unknown, some gems and sure, some stinkers but man, just having all those Arcade games at your fingertips is pretty sweet ! Feel free to comment adding your own experiences, stories, history with MAME through the years. - Rob. 😎
 
MAME - the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator turned 25 years old. In this episode we take a look at the early days and its importance to emulation.
 

I'd say that MiSTer in conjunction with WinUAE will cover you pretty well.
They said it was emulation. So it appears you may be paying for convenience of having everything set up in mini-console.

I was going to invest, but I found this bootleg version for $24.99.  It's very refreshing!

 

The new version was released yesterday and word spread online earlier today. You can get the latest version here:
 
https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/index.html#vice

Oh great!  What's new is here (looks substantial):  https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/NEWS
Thank you for sharing.