I would want:

Food fight
Mr Do
Ms Pacman
Whirlwind (Pinball)
Funhouse (Pinball)

I want a MAME cabinet to just show up here. I need to get someone with the clue to do it beholden to me.

If only I knew what was wrong with the Mr Do machine I have, actually, I'd be less sad (though a pinball table would be nice, too)

Why not simply convert the Mr. Do machine into a MAME cabinet?

You realize that there are interface boards that allow you to plug its controls and its monitor directly into your PC, so that the only thing you'd need is the PC.

I would understand not wanting to mess up a classic arcade game in good condition in order to make a MAME cabinet, but:

1. It's not even in working order, based on what you said.

2. Come on, it's Mr. Do.

Hahahahhahaha! One thought I have always toyed with was creating a mini-MAME cabinet. Not a full size cabinet, but a control panel with a mini-atx or other small computer inside with output to DVI or other big screen TV. This way it does not take up that much space, but the gameplay and screen are still impressive.

It was a gift, and I'd like to make it work again.

Looks like Tempest is on everyone's list.
I was feeling pretty good that I actually *own* a Tempest game until I went to the California arcade thing last month. Somebody had brought in a Tempest where they had switched in some custom ROMs to get new level shapes. Some of them were inside out ! Excellent. Now I'm jealous again.

OK, my dream list.
--------------------
Tempest
Robotron
Qix
Quantum (slightly rare, but quite cool)
DeathRace 2000 (silly fun, extremely rare, haven't seen one in decades, strangely was considered "too violent" way back in its day)
Defender/Stargate

For Pinballs:
--------------------
Hyperball (30 or 40 pinballs in flight at once, crazy madness! Useful for waking up the children or annoying the neighbors.)
Black Hole
Gorgar
Then probably FunHouse or Black Knight
Finally I'd probably include "Invasion from Mars" if it weren't so enormous and so likely to be an utter maintenance nightmare.

Bonus wishlist item: An old Atari Football would be nice for any rec room (Black and white. The X's vs. the O's. Giant trackball that one spins wildly.)

Then, if I still had just a little more room needing to be filled, I'd get a pinball game called, I believe, "Orbit." It's not that fun to play, but it's really fun to watch someone else play it. The playsurface isn't flat but is some kind of parabolic clear plastic. So the ball orbits around the flippers and just generally does weird bizarre things.

Well, Whirlwind didn't have a magnet but rather a spinning disc which would do wild things to the ball's trajectory. Good guess though!

My favorite Funhouse quote: "HEY! You with the face!"

The pebble remains.

-Zeke

I can't name one but but I'm positive some of the games I've played had electromagnets under the board. They went on and off depending on what I never figured.

We built a mame cabinet at my old work, and it's still there. We went all the way, too. Built the cabinet, complete with T-moulding and plexi drink cover. The only thing we left out was the coin mech. It was just too expensive to justify. At the house I just use a shelf from home depot with 2x4's attached with rubber feet on the bottom. The only problem with that is that it's too light for 2 people to be playing something like Killer Instinct on it. It keeps sliding around. The only bad thing about going the whole cabinet route is the space required and the cost. Total cost BEFORE adding the PC was about $800. Since there were 6 of us going in on it, it wasn't so bad, but I couldn't swallow that alone.

Or you could wimp out and buy one of these.

One of my favorite pinball games with the electromagnet was Addams Family. When you had two out of three balls for multiball it started spinning under the table, making the ball path erratic. It continued through the multiball until you were dead. It also came on during the "Seance" bonus game, where you had to go up the bear ramp 3 times to finish. The Adams Family is one of the most popular pinball games of all time, btw.

Theatre of Magic was also an excellent pinball game.

There's many that have magnets, Twighlight Zone & Addams Family both use them.

There's a great resource at www.ipdb.org for searching games.

Search by Playfield Toys / magnets and you'll get a list of 11 machines. Williams also had 'Magnasave' which caught the side drains on some of their machines.

-Zeke

A coworker had his Addams Family table at work for a while. It sucked when he left.

You could buy one of these for even more money

Greetings!

The item you are looking for is the Tempest Tubes ROM. You can occasionally spot the ROM chip, or the Tempest Multigame modification on ebay. If you still cannot find it, I have a Tempest Tubes ROM somewhere in my desk... Of course, if you really want to get exotic, you can (in theory) design your own playfields with TempEd and burn them to ROMs. I haven't tried this one yet, though.

Thanks, Paul! You the man!

I actually thought about doing this in the early 90's, but never actually got around to it. I'm sure glad somebody did though. (and apparently even 10 years before I got the idea!)

You don't happen to know where I can pick up the 3-color laser thing do you? Apparently, someone got red/green/blue lasers and rigged it to their Tempest so that you could play with it projected onto a 100 ft by 100 ft wall outside.
Now that would rock.

I guess this means it's time to finally get around to replacing the old capacitors, etc. inside the high-voltage cage. I'm always a little afraid, however, ever since I melted the end off a voltmeter probe when discharging the CRT cathode. Better the probe than me though!

Wall-sized laser Tempest?!??! That's something I'd love to try. You might as well add in some insane speakers and subwoofers so you really feel it when you get shot.

That laser thing does sound rather nice! I have never seen it in use, though. Wow! And, yes, a sub so you can feel every shot!!!

The story of the melted probe certainly makes me think twice about going into the high voltage cage myself... I have all of the documentation and manuals - 19500V does not strike me as a "good thing", although I am sure there are some on the board much more comfortable with this kind of voltage than I!

Yes, I think it would be awesome.
I've never seen it, but apparently Loren has.
See here.

Oh! A MAME version. That is easy, because you would be hooking up a standard projection unit to a PC / video card. It would not be a Tempest arcade machine powering the graphics. That can be done with any PC projection system, although there might be some versions that are better than others.

EDIT: Found it! See LaserMAME...

By the way, did you get the Tubes ROM? If you are not interested, I might pick it up as a spare. The one I have is (I think) one of the originals...

check Here.

Yes, looking through that site, if you want real lasers instead of regular projection (and who wouldn't), you are looking at some serious investment. Still, if you were going on tour or building an arcade or club...

Why haven't I seen Major Havoc in any of these lists??? A classic!

I am settling on the idea on a cheaper/needs work machine.

I figure it will make a better investment long term, I will have to learn how to maintain the thing, so I may as well restore it as I go along. Also the initial outlay will be much lower.

PinballHeaven.co.uk is a great resource, prices seem quite good too!!! I'm all excited!!! Now to wait to find a good deal.

I did toy with the idea of a MAME Cab, but I have never been a fan of computer games in general, pinball is much more my bag, although it would take up much less room!!!! Mmmmmmm

Cheers

Cris.

One thing you may want to do before buying the machine (or perhaps when you buy it) - get the full technical manual, study it and be sure you are comfortable with as much as you can.

MAME is nice, but there is nothing like a good pinball table...

Quote:
Actually, I had that one growing up. I wonder what happened to it? My parents got divorced when I went to college so my Dad might have sold it. Now I have a burning need to know!

I have a burning image in my mind of another pinball machine that I played at Nantasket Beach around 1964 that I can *not* get out of my mind, but can *never* remember the name of. Grrrrr.

We had a Fireball in the lobby of an EM club at Fort Sam Houston in 1972 that had a complete lock on my affections until years later when I married Missile Command :-)

From that link, looks like there were "consumer" versions of Fireball (vaguely remember reading about that). Did your folks have one of those?

I see a Fireball on eBay for around $2600 US. Sighhhhhh.