My Atari 2600 Arcade Cabinet

disjaukifa

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Hey Guys,

I'm fairly new to this board and to arcade machines but not to vintage gaming. I'd thought I show off my project I decided to do, its not complete yet, but its up and running and has provided hours of entertainment so far. I call it my 2600 Cabinet! Here's a short video of it works, I still need a Marque and a couple of other finishing touches to call it complete, thinking about making another control board as well . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT3nXFOsJG0

I had found the cabinet empty on CL for $25 bucks, no monitor, no internals except the coin door and decided to put my spare CRT TV into it and make an arcade machine out of it.

I'll post better and newer high res pictures later, just wanted to know what ya'll think!

Thanks
Disjaukifa
 

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I just bought a POlice Trainer in that cabinet. I think I like your idea but I don't think the 2600 games could hold my attention enough to want to play them standing up.
 
I don't think the 2600 games could hold my attention enough to want to play them standing up.

I'd give you an "A" for effort but I agree with the above statement, I do enjoy playing the games on handlheld devices when I get nostalgic.
 
I think its pretty damn cool and unique. I will be following this thread to see the finished project.
 
Thanks for the replies! The game that I spend literally hours playing on this machine is Berzerk, usually play one game get to around 180K ~ 200K before my son wakes up at night. I've also played Mr. Do!s Castle (yes horrible collision detection on the 2600) for a couple of hours as well!

I really want to get a Marque in the unit, but I'm not sure on the design for it . .
 
I really want to get a Marque in the unit, but I'm not sure on the design for it . .

Maybe go off the the original box art and font for athetics?

Atari-2600-Box.gif
 
What's the cart in the video?

You've got to use woodgrain on the sides.

You wouldn't be able to play my favorite 2600 game on that cabinet. Kaboom! Ever thought of adding paddle controllers? Not sure how you'd do it without cluttering up your control panel.
 
console games are made to be played sitting on the couch. your control panel seems to have some sort of spaghetti monster living underneath it. seems totally pointless to me, and without a paddle control, even more so, but hey, its your thing, if it makes you happy thats all that matters!
 
That is one sweet cabinet. You should post about it over at BYOAC as well.
mmm... ability to play River Raid in a cab with arcade controls... mmm...
 
i think the best way to play river raid is on the couch with a sega genesis control. they are interchangeable with the atari joystick and the button is on the right side...
 
i think the best way to play river raid is on the couch with a sega genesis control. they are interchangeable with the atari joystick and the button is on the right side...

To each his own. There was a lot of crosstalk between the arcades and early consoles (short, challenging, score-attack games with simple controls, both arcade ports and early console originals like what Activision produced), so I could see a lot of games working in an arcade-cab setup. Personally, I think projects like this and the DK '94 cab are brilliant ways to experience old consoles/games in an innovative way.
 
Sitting on the couch? I played sitting on the floor right in front of the screen :D
 
I like it! It almost needs real Atari 2600 joysticks made to work with it...
 
i think the best way to play river raid is on the couch with a sega genesis control. they are interchangeable with the atari joystick and the button is on the right side...

Fuck the Atari joystick. I much prefer the Genesis controller over that muddy rubbery monstrosity Atari called a joystick. It's nothing like a real arcade cabinet joystick.
 
Fuck the Atari joystick. I much prefer the Genesis controller over that muddy rubbery monstrosity Atari called a joystick. It's nothing like a real arcade cabinet joystick.

Plus they don't stand up to much abuse...I went thru a bunch of them growing up, until I got a couple Wico bat-handles. Still have them and they still work :)
 
To each his own. There was a lot of crosstalk between the arcades and early consoles (short, challenging, score-attack games with simple controls, both arcade ports and early console originals like what Activision produced), so I could see a lot of games working in an arcade-cab setup. Personally, I think projects like this and the DK '94 cab are brilliant ways to experience old consoles/games in an innovative way.

yeah i get what you are saying, i kinda did the opposite a few years back when i built control panels you could put on your lap to play arcade games with MAME on a big screen livingroom TV while sitting on the couch!!!
 
Hey Guys,

Thank you for the wonderful feedback. Its been a fun on going project! Its not perfect by any means, but it sure is fun! I've never liked the Atari joysticks myself, and the genesis controllers I didn't like either because most of the game to me feel like you need a joystick, not a d-pad. I like the Tac-2 joysticks, but I wanted an authentic arcade feel and used X-Arcade spare parts I had to make the controls.

I liked them so much that I made a Arcade controller for my regular 2600 . . . once you go arcade, you can never go back!

Still out of town at the moment, I'll post more pictures of the cabinet tomorrow evening!

Thanks again for all the comments! I'm glad no one was upset with me using that empty cabinet for that purpose!

-Disjaukifa
 
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