So, let's see...
1) Yep, cocktail support (and mirrored Ast. Dlx as well as 'normal' cabs)
2) Neil Bradley (remember Retrocade? ;-) is my partner on this one. We're co-owners at Ground Kontrol and have done a bunch of commercial arcade/emulated stuff together over the years.
3) Timeline-- Neil's ahead of me at the moment (he's handling software, I'm doing hardware) and I'm pretty booked through October, so some time after that. We'll put it in Ground Kontrol for beta testing.
4) Although Neil did work on the PC side ZVG stuff with Zonn, this is all new. (New hardware, new software/emulators, etc. No PC or MAME or ZVG, just a little all-in-one PCB kinda like the ArcadeSD board.)
5) That having been said-- it *is* a separate project from the ArcadeSD work, so it won't share that name, but it's similar otherwise. Saves high scores&settings, 'single game replacement mode', upgrade with a Windows based app, play vertical games on horizontal monitor, etc.
This first variation is meant to be specific to an "asteroids family" machine and plugs directly in to the harness. There's optional support for a spinner and LL thrust controller if someone wants to make a custom control panel. I have a new arcade push button that allows for analog as well as digital output, so that's an option for analog thrust control without needing to hack up your control panel.
Games that need 'extra' stuff-- like the buildings in Armor Attack, or game select 'lamps' in LL are rendered on screen in vectors.
If people like it, we'll do a color version as a follow-on. (Since that just calls for somewhat more complex hardware and the machines to use it on are more varied, I decided to target Asteroids as the host for the first version. Lots of people have Asteroids machines and they're nicely "standardized".)
-Clay