What to do with my Moppet Video? Game suggestions

PrairieDillo

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Ok I'm not going to sell it to ANYONE so please don't bother with that.

Ugly in black and it's not as rough as it looks!

IMG_0022.JPG


I found a shelled out Moppet Video Tugboat in Lodi earlier this week. I'm restoring it as an unbranded JAMMA vertical monitor game. EDIT: decided it needed a theme.

I'll keep the same colors as the original when I repaint it.

I'm going to have a Sanwa center mounted JLF joystick for 4-8 way switching. I can get some wing nuts on the control panel bolts so that it's easy to pull that out and switch the joy action.

What suggestions do you guys have for games that can go into this thing.

I have an Arcade Shop board, and a Taito G-net board for some vert Space invaders Anniversary.

Are there any "easy" to play vert monitor games that you would suggest to little kids? I want my 5 yr olds to have their very own scaled down machine to play on. They already measured up and it's perfect for them.
 
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a 60 in 1 would be a good idea. My 5 year old loves it. Nothing really 'bang bang' or stabby in the game list too, so it's Mom-approved.

Now if you REALLY want a 5 year old based game, you can do something similiar to what I did for my kid:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=157335&highlight=buzz+lightyear

That uses one of those 'plug and play' Jakks controllers but switching in arcade quality controls and a stand up cab. You've got the cab so you are way ahead of me. Plus later on you can remove the Jakks setup and put in a regular arcade board and monitor. My 5 year old plays the heck out of his.
 
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IMHO a Jakks pacific doesn't deserve a full cab.
They could do the same on a TV. I really want it to be a scale down JAMMA cab. The problem is that I'm limited to a Vert Monitor on this cab. I don't think I can fit a horz monitor in it. I already ordered a 13" K7000 that popped up the other night in the FS section.
 
I think that is a different style cab than the crystal castles moppet so this may not apply but the CC moppet has a horizontally mounted monitor in it.
 
Send it to Noice, he'll restore it for you... it'll be mint!! :D

I took this:

hs-5_002.jpg


and turned it into this

IMG_0095.JPG


I don't want one of these.

CrystalCastlesMoppet.jpg


Leprechaun is the Horz monitor one.
 
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A 60 in 1 is a vertical monitor set up. Plus it has Pac Man, Donkey Kong and all the other classics in it. Also it's a Jamma set up, so that is part of your plan as well.
 
Now if you REALLY want a 5 year old based game, you can do something similiar to what I did for my kid:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=157335&highlight=buzz+lightyear

That uses one of those 'plug and play' Jakks controllers but switching in arcade quality controls and a stand up cab. You've got the cab so you are way ahead of me. Plus later on you can remove the Jakks setup and put in a regular arcade board and monitor. My 5 year old plays the heck out of his.

That's actually how the mini Galaga I converted to MAME came, with a Jakks Pacific plug and play hardwired to arcade controls. Still haven't been able to track down who built the said cabs...

Before...
special-galagamultigame-01.jpg

special-galagamultigame-02.jpg


After...
special-galagamultigame-23.jpg

special-galagamultigame-24.jpg


(CRT replacing the LCD this fall)

The control panel height actually falls about where a cocktail control panel would.
 
My Moppet is Jamma based. Converted by one of Klov and I cherish this one ever since!. Horz 13 Monitor fits real good. Dont ask me how but it does fit and it s designed to play street fighter 2 (CAPCOM RULES). I realized which my kids doesnt really agreed with street fighter 2. I tried to figure how to make it cool and still can match with my Moppet CP CPO (Capcom diamond CPO). All of suddenly I got an idea and thank to EESOYO!!! he sold me 3 wonders games and my kid loves em. She s 4 and plays good with it. YES IT S CAPCOM!

PICTURES?? check it out on my Avatar!!!

thanks.

P.s. If anybody has moppet to sell. SEE ME FIRST!! ILL CIFF YA.. What the heck is CIFF? CASH IN FUCK FACE!!! LOL!! need one more for my baby son!. =) Of course I wouldnt pay thousand dollars but will pay great money for it. PM thanks.
 
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Im creaming my pant to see this one!. VERY NICE JOB but poor moppet gonna exinct! Cuz everyone will want to reverse all Moppet into Jamma. I wanted one that are still into MOPPET games. Tugboat is one Im looking for!!!,.


That's actually how the mini Galaga I converted to MAME came, with a Jakks Pacific plug and play hardwired to arcade controls. Still haven't been able to track down who built the said cabs...

Before...
special-galagamultigame-01.jpg

special-galagamultigame-02.jpg


After...
special-galagamultigame-23.jpg

special-galagamultigame-24.jpg


(CRT replacing the LCD this fall)

The control panel height actually falls about where a cocktail control panel would.
 
I have an arcade shop and I prefer it to the UI and performance of a xx:1

Dave - your mini galaga is super sweet. I love your improvements too! What is the full story on tht one? I don't think you shared it.
 
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Dave - your mini galaga is super sweet. I love your improvements too! What is the full story on tht one? I don't think you shared it.

A couple years ago my girlfriend mentioned that there were a few small scale arcade games at the school she teaches at. So I went to check them out on the way to CAX 2009 and noticed they were plug and play joysticks reworked into little arcade cabs. One had some issues which lead to two of them having some issues which later lead to all of them having issues. I put a bid in that I would fix them if I could take one of the cabinets as my fee, which was accepted. Really they just had the usual abuse from kids beating on them and one of them had the control panel wiring fall apart. The cabs are REALLY nicely built otherwise.

Here are the other two still at the school, running stock...
special-galagamultigame-25.jpg


I have a big rundown on the whole thing here - http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi/special-galagamultigame.html - need to update the page since I just replaced the joystick switches a couple weeks ago, put in a better audio amp and did some more cable management. The stock switches in those pull up and swap 4/8 way sticks are total garbage but you have to transplant the actuators since they're non-standard.

Which FE is that?

GameLauncher, nice antique frontend.
 
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Yes it clearly is a tugboat. I sanded it down to the white vinyl yesterday. I probably will only dress it on the marquee and leave everything else plain.

Great story Dave, too bad there's no full background on who built them. The art looks really well done on them. Too bad the electronics don't match the rest of it. I had thought about building minis but they really are quite a bit of work compared to what you get out of it.
 
I seen one moppet and it had a super system pcb in it running super mario bros and it was kinda kool. The op did it and he said he made a ton of money as kids would feed that machine quarter after quarter
 
SMBW is an awesome game that kids don't know today but one wonders how well it could do in this market in service when the kids have New SMB at home on their Wii.
 
Semi off topic but does anyone know of someone in NorCal that can build one of those mini cabs?? I've been wanting one for my daughter for quite sometime now.
 
Semi off topic but does anyone know of someone in NorCal that can build one of those mini cabs?? I've been wanting one for my daughter for quite sometime now.

It would be all custom work so that's the pricy part of it.
This is probably why the original builder went with cheap TVs and the Jakks Pacific guts to power the TVs. Going w/ JAMMA would have brought in expensive monitors and boards.

If you went w/ just plain 15" LCDs and rotated them it would be much cheaper but then you would need switchers and JAMMA harnesses going to $100 60:1 boards.
 
Great story Dave, too bad there's no full background on who built them. The art looks really well done on them. Too bad the electronics don't match the rest of it. I had thought about building minis but they really are quite a bit of work compared to what you get out of it.

Exactly, it's often easier and no more expensive to build a full size cabinet for a 60 in 1 or MAME setup. While I don't think MAME is a silver bullet for arcade gaming, it does make a nice addition to dedicated cabs and as many have said, it's a gateway drug to buying lesser known machines. I've always really liked cabaret sized machines and when I had the chance for this one to fall into my lap, so to speak, I couldn't pass it up. If anything it's made me fully realize that a row of Konami Classic games (Gyruss, Loco-Motion, Road Fighter, Circus Charlie, Roc'n Rope) will probably be my eventual goal after I get more space.

Semi off topic but does anyone know of someone in NorCal that can build one of those mini cabs?? I've been wanting one for my daughter for quite sometime now.

It would be all custom work so that's the pricy part of it.
This is probably why the original builder went with cheap TVs and the Jakks Pacific guts to power the TVs. Going w/ JAMMA would have brought in expensive monitors and boards.

Also the way my cab is built is kinda crazy. The monitor shelf sits on a pair of 2"x4" runners that go from the back of the cab down to the front at the monitor angle. Above this there are a pair of 1"x2" runners that follow the same contour as the monitor runners, going from back to front and eventually becoming the left / right supports for the control panel. The bezel glass rests on these upper runners, sandwiched between a lip on the edge of the control panel and the inner back of the cabinet. Those upper runners are secured by four screws, two on each side. If you remove the upper screws it allows the runners to pivot down, giving clearance for the bezel glass to be slid out from the back.

You can see the upper runners for the bezel glass (covered in black tape to make it disappear behind the smoked glass) and the lower runners for the monitor shelf here...

special-galagamultigame-16.jpg


The bezel runners have been tilted back to remove the glass in that picture, which raises the control panel up a little as it pivots on the front screws, that's why the contours don't match in the picture. If you wanted to remove the entire assembly you'd just remove the front screws as well and the upper runners / control panel would slide right out. When I eventually redo the artwork on the CP due to a big gouge, that's how I'll get it out to reskin the CP. With the glass and monitor shelf removed it's pretty easy to work on the CP from through the front of the cab.

Two screws secure the monitor shelf to the back of the monitor shelf runners. After removing these two screws the entire monitor shelf simply slides back and out. Really cool modular design. I'm going to clone this when I make a new one to accommodate a vertically oriented CRT. Currently I don't have to remove the glass to get the monitor shelf out since the LCD panel has a much lower profile than the little TV, but when I go back to a CRT I'll have to go back to removing the glass first as the screen won't clear the very back edge of the bezel otherwise. I learned that the hard way when I was first figuring out how to disassemble the cabinets, sheered off about 1/4 inch of the bezel glass with the CRT trying to squeeze it out, thankfully it's a part of it you can't see from the other side. When working on the cabinet it's really nice to be able to remove the entire monitor assembly with two screws and be able to just set it aside.

As a game suggestion for the Moppet Video cab, the Namco Classic Collection boards are always a good time.
 
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