Arcade Legends Machine.....worth the trouble??

swayze2

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I have the opportunity to pickup an Arcades Legends machine. Actually the cabinet looks nice and all the controls look good. He said he thinks the "server" inside the machine is shot. I think he means the computer, but he has the disks. Anyone have any experience with these machines? Will any PC go in these or is it like a megatouch where there are security keys and encryption. These are really the only multi machines that I have seen where the art is actually pretty decent.... Any thoughts?
 
Depends on the money and the type of cabinet. There are two flavors of these. The Arcade Legends was basically a 6 button JAMMA cab with a computer tower in it mated to the JAMMA harness via an interface board. These machines came both with a 25" WG monitor and later with a 19" LCD. The Arcade Legends 2 cab is similar but only came with a 25" arcade monitor and used a specialized board that ran a flash memory card instead of a full computer. The cabinets are nicely made and make a good MAME cab. If it's the earlier model with the computer then you can usually have it fixed or replace it with an Ultracade setup which is the commercial version of this software. These computers can be pricy, but there are guys out there that can help you with that.
 
Mine had a 25in monitor. picked it up for $800. All the vectors suck!!! All the williams games are good.
 
Thanks for the feedback, I think I am going to get it. Hopefully the PC is fixable. If the hard drive has failed does the machine come with reload disks? The guy seems to think the disks are inside the machine. Anyone know if its a windows or linux build?

Thanks guys!
 
How does the interface card connect to the PC? Is it a usb connection? Would this work with a different PC or something specific to their hardware?

Thanks!
 
I don't think I would get one of those on purpose. I haven't really played them but I'm not much of a multigame guy. If one with a bad computer fell into my lap, I would probably just toss a SF2 board in it, since its 6 button JAMMA. Maybe some multi-board that supports a horizontal monitor. I got turned off to those when they first came out. I think it was the $5000 price tag I saw on one in a game room type store in a mall. They had pool tables and all other sorts of rec room stuff and one of those.

I may have seen the newer version with the 19" monitor or at least it was similar. The fighters played ok but some classics had control issues. Elevator Action was terrible with an 8 way stick. I think the thing also had a trackball but I don't remember there being any trackball games on that one.
 
How does the interface card connect to the PC? Is it a usb connection? Would this work with a different PC or something specific to their hardware?

Thanks!

I haven't tried the interface card with someone elses PC. In my experience it's the interface card that goes bad. You can bypass the interface card and plug this into a regular VGA monitor, if you get an image that pretty mch lets you know the interface card is bad. These are regular PC's and can be fixed as such, check the PSU to see if the fan spins and go from there.
 
To answer your question about the system, it's a proprietary OS. Interface card troubles are real, but you can adapt a jpac from Ultimarc if the interface is bad. The interface cards can be PS2 or USB depending on the age of the machine. Emulation of the games on these is good, but it is still emulation. My take on it is that it is a slick presentation (slick enough that the Hyperspin FE for MAME is based on it), and each game has an individual "how to play" screen that shows which controls to use. It's great for parties where people unfamiliar with a multigame can use it without any help from you.
 
I may have seen the newer version with the 19" monitor or at least it was similar. The fighters played ok but some classics had control issues. Elevator Action was terrible with an 8 way stick. I think the thing also had a trackball but I don't remember there being any trackball games on that one.

There are trackball games on it. I think it depended on which pack you had. Alot of the TA truckstops have these (on freeplay even!) and some have Marble Madness and Crystal Castles. Unfortunately, the control is nothing like the original machine :( They also don't seem to reliable. Every one I've seen in my travels either has buttons that don't work or the sound has quit working.
 
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