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How I 1 Upped My Arcade1up

Cary Hardy·video·19m 12s·analyzed·Dec 31, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

DIY Arcade1Up MAME conversion walkthrough with control panel mods and emulation setup.

Summary

Cary Hardy documents his conversion of an Arcade1Up NFL Blitz cabinet into a MAME (arcade emulation) machine for $110 in additional hardware costs. He details the control panel modifications, monitor interface board installation, wiring, and software setup using LaunchBox frontend, while discussing his entry into arcade emulation through past MAME builds and his future plans for cosmetic upgrades and eventual migration to an AtGames Legends cabinet.

Key Claims

  • The Arcade1Up NFL Blitz cabinet cost $250 and was purchased primarily for the cabinet shell rather than the game

    high confidence · Direct statement at video opening

  • The MAME conversion cost approximately $110 in additional hardware, with the computer being the most expensive component if starting from scratch

    high confidence · Explicit cost breakdown early in video

  • The original Arcade1Up 49-way joysticks are not compatible with the aftermarket arcade control sticks installed; testing showed no signal/readings

    high confidence · Technical testing demonstrated in video; proprietary encoder suspected

  • Arcade1Up marquees are commonly washed out when lit due to poor opacity and light bleed-through

    medium confidence · Speaker's observation and statement that this is 'a common thing with arcade 1-up marquees'

  • The monitor interface board required did not need any adjustments and booted without configuration

    high confidence · Direct observation during demonstration

  • Hardy plans to eventually upgrade to an AtGames Legends Arcade cabinet after 1-2 years with the current Arcade1Up build

    high confidence · Direct statement about future plans near video conclusion

  • Raspberry Pi was tested by the speaker in the past but was not powerful enough to run all arcade games desired

    high confidence · Personal experience recounted; mentions RetroPi specifically

  • The speaker originally entered the MAME hobby through converting a Tekken Tag Tournament cabinet, then upgraded to a four-player showcase cabinet MAME

    high confidence · Detailed personal history provided early in video

Notable Quotes

  • “I bought it for the cabinet. Because my endgame goal was to convert it to a mame. And I accomplished that goal.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:08 — Establishes the core purpose and motivation for the entire project

  • “The ability to play every game I played as a kid on one machine? Uh, yes please.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:46 — Articulates the appeal of MAME emulation to casual viewers

  • “Sure, the quality isn't top-notch, but it's going to get the job done.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:27 — Acknowledges trade-offs in choosing Arcade1Up over higher-end cabinets

  • “I've been out of the MAME hobby for so long that there's more than likely better ways to go about doing this conversion than what I did.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:32 — Shows self-awareness and humility about technical evolution in the MAME space

  • “I don't want it taking up a lot of real estate. Hence why I leaned towards the Arcade 1-Up.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:13 — Identifies the key advantage of Arcade1Up: compact footprint versus previous four-player cabinet

  • “I at least want to make the coin door, the coin slot, slide up. That's bare minimum.”

    Cary Hardy@ 18:47 — Indicates planned future cosmetic upgrade to improve cabinet authenticity

  • “Chances are I'm going to have this arcade one up for a year or so or until it craps out on me and then I'll upgrade to an AtGames Arcade Legends or something like that.”

Entities

Cary HardypersonArcade1UpcompanyAtGamescompanyMAMEproductLaunchBoxproductRaspberry PiproductETA PrimepersonRetroPiproductStreet Fighter 2gameTekken Tag Tournamentgame

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Speaker considering upgrade path from Arcade1Up MAME to AtGames Legends cabinet within 1-2 years, indicating Arcade1Up as temporary/interim solution for arcade gaming

    high · Direct statement: 'Chances are I'm going to have this arcade one up for a year or so or until it craps out on me and then I'll upgrade to an AtGames Arcade Legends'

  • ?

    product_concern: Arcade1Up marquee backlit displays have endemic opacity and light bleed issues resulting in washed-out appearance

    medium · Speaker observes 'that's a common thing with arcade 1-up marquees is that they're not very opaque. so the light shines through them way too easily and it looks washed out'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Arcade1Up 49-way joysticks use proprietary encoders incompatible with standard aftermarket arcade control solutions

    high · Tested joystick produced no signal or readings when connected; speaker states 'chances are there's some kind of special encoder involved on the proprietary hardware that you're going to end up removing'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Speaker demonstrates accessible DIY MAME conversion capability for consumer Arcade1Up cabinets, lowering barrier to entry for arcade emulation hobbyists

    medium · Detailed walkthrough showing $110 additional hardware cost and plug-and-play component integration using standard USB joystick boards and HDMI interface

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.058

0:00
I bought this arcade one-up NFL Blitz for $250, which is a pretty good deal. But I didn't buy it for the game. I bought it for the cabinet. Because my endgame goal was to convert it to a main. And I accomplished that goal. And now I'm going to show you how I did it.
0:30
Now some of you already know this, but MAME, or an arcade machine, is actually where I first got into the hobby of pinball, actually. I started with a Tekken Tag Tournament, and then I turned that into a MAME once I discovered that you could do that kind of thing. The ability to play every game I played as a kid on one machine? Uh, yes please. Now that Tekken Tag Machine was only a two-player and I wanted a four-player cabinet, so eventually I upgraded to a showcase cabinet and made it a four-player MAME. Had that for a lot of years and then when it came to moving and it just took up a lot of space and I was more into pinball than I was into that, so I sold it. And honestly, I've been wanting to get another MAME, but I did not want it taking up a lot of real estate. Hence why I leaned towards the Arcade 1-Up for this particular reason. It has a small footprint.
1:27
Sure, the quality isn't top-notch, but it's going to get the job done. And the thing is, I've been out of the MAME hobby for so long that there's more than likely better ways to go about doing this conversion than what I did. For instance, when it comes to the computer inside, the computer I have is way overkill for what you're going to need when it comes to running only arcade machine games. Unless you're going for the higher 3D type of games like your Tekken Tags and stuff like that. The conversion for this cost me around $110 and that's because I already have some of the hardware, meaning like the computer and HDMI cables and stuff like that. If you go the PC route, that's probably going to be one of your most expensive items. But by all means, I've heard many great things about the Raspberry Pi. I've used it one time in the past. I had a RetroPi, but it wasn't strong enough to run everything. And I wanted to run everything. But that's all about personal preference. The front end that I'm using is LaunchBox. There are plenty of different ones out there. you will have to find which one you like best. There's plenty of videos out there going over this entire hobby of MAME. So I suggest if you are really serious about converting your arcade one-up into one then you may want to check out a lot of other channels. One of those channels is ETA Prime. I will put a link in the description down below for his channel. He goes over all things emulation. I was questioned if the 49-way joysticks that it comes with are going to be compatible with the arcade control sticks that I purchased. And it doesn't look like they are. I connected one of the joysticks to that 49-way, and I wasn't getting any kind of signal or readings in the software. So chances are there's some kind of special encoder involved on the proprietary hardware that you're going to end up removing. Everything that I put into this machine I will have links in the description down below. Now one of the downsides to this current status is that my marquee is not lit. Some of you that doesn't bother but I know a lot of you out there want your marquees to be lit. Me on the other hand it doesn't bother me because I saw it when it was lit and it's pretty washed out. And evidently that's a common thing with arcade 1-up marquees is that they're not very opaque. so the light shines through them way too easily and it looks washed out and that marquee is like right there at my eye level so I don't need it to shine in my face I'm perfectly content with my marquee not being lit up and yes I know there are ways to light it up but I don't really care if mine's lit so that's just my personal preference now this video is mainly only for those of you out there that have the NFL Blitz cabinet so I can't vouch for any other particular generation or cabinet with arcade one up having the same ease of install one of the mods I plan on doing in the future is having my coin buttons lit up that is an easy thing that I believe I can be able to do that I just need to order the hardware I need and even then I think I could do it even cheaper just need a strip of LEDs I got an idea i just haven done it yet but eventually you see in future videos where my coin buttons down here my coin inserts will be lit up okay so here is my arcade one-up control panel i have removed it from the cabinet over there and this is what it looks like now got my quarter buttons for all my players right here and different joysticks and buttons with all light-up capabilities. So the first thing you're going to notice is that there's three additional buttons here and right here. Those three on both players one and two and all four of my quarter buttons down here are the only holes that I drilled. There's a couple of different bits that you can use. These step bits right here are pretty useful. that's what that's the tool that I use I'll put the other bits in the description down below but uh so this is what it looks like on the outside and over here where the wires come out are four USB cables one for each player so we're gonna open this up and show you what it looks like inside of this thing let's turn it over all right so let's remove all the phillips head screws that all the way around the perimeter of this control panel and we'll see if we can get a better view on the inside. All right so here's what it looks like on the inside. The coin buttons are right there. Now the positioning from where I got these I had to be pretty careful but I guesstimated it and it turned out to be perfect. So the spacing on where it's at does not touch anything on the control panel that's up here. These, I probably just need to go ahead and cut these and get rid of them because this is the original volume and power button to the arcade one up, but they're not hurting anything being there. So I'm just letting them be. Now, every player has their own joystick controller board and the USB that goes to the computer. The computer will recognize this as a generic joystick. And whenever you boot up your software, then you can basically choose which button does what inside the software. These particular buttons have four leads. Two of these leads are for the LED and the other two are for your switch.

Cary Hardy@ 18:57 — Reveals realistic expectations about Arcade1Up lifespan and upgrade path

NFL Blitz
game
AtGames Legends Pinballproduct
7:18
And the switch, it doesn't matter. They're not polarity because it's just a switch. Whenever it makes a connection, can't see anything this side. Whenever it makes a connection, it lets that board know that hey this switch has been activated now the led on the other hand that is polarity based so you need to make sure that you have the orientation those correct what's funny is that it says positive and it has an arrow pointing to this but it's actually ground i don't know why that's a misprint or what but all the buttons i mean i'm used to positive being red and negative being ground. So that's how I first wired it and they didn't work. And once I reversed them, they all worked. So just keep that in mind in case you have that issue. Food for thought. But every player has their own button sequence. Their quarter corresponds to that controller board that it's attached to. Now I do have the exit button wired to player two instead of player one it doesn't matter it's just that this particular player has an additional control plugged into the board it's no big deal but this is my exit button up here which used to be the live button on blitz but this is how to exit out of all my games or back out of a certain you know arcade module or playstation or whatever i'm deciding to play it's basically my backup button or exit button but that's what it looks like on the inside and these are the aftermarket controllers i've got these boards on here using double-sided pad tape you could screw these in if you want to but i just wanted it to be able to be removed and moved around if i needed to because as you can see the positioning on these is pretty snug but I've got it to work these joysticks are obviously not the ones that came with the system I would like to try the 49 way joystick out to see if it plugs in and work because it looks like it may fit into this particular port right here so I wonder if it would work I gonna try that out in this video so get you I'll let you get back at that 49 joystick works for this thing then that'll save you a lot of headache right there of having to re drill new holes for these aftermarket joysticks so that's the fun part is that you have to get the joysticks all centered and then drill new holes for that to be where it's at. So that's where all my control sticks are currently at and the boards that correspond to them and they all feed through this hole. Now I had to do a little bit of damage but you're never going to see that in order to get all the USB cables through there. so yeah so wouldn't even know that was there unless I showed it to you so but that's basically the control panel now let me show you what I've got going on in the cabinet all right so this is what you're going to need to do in order to get your monitor to work with like an HDMI or DVI or VGA source and you have to purchase this there once again link will be in the description and I know this board works for at least this generation which I believe is generation three now I had to mount it on this plate to the monitor which I don't like doing because I don't want any of the back pins touching this and this cord is only as long as it is so that's as far as it goes but I've got once again more of the double-sided sticky tape just to make sure that it's not touching anything I got it like double-plated on the back so the board's not going anywhere it's not touching anything it shouldn't the power cable that comes with this game will fit into the same board so that's a plus and then the hdmi cable merely goes to your source or your pc and audio like the speakers i've got going to my pc now the pc is just a merely a small computer like this all four of my joysticks right here one two three four HDMI and power that's all I've got going to this particular system and using the headphone jack right here for the audio for the computer I have not tried yet but there is a line out and headphone jack on this board so you might be able to just hook up to this and the audio may be able to go to the HDMI if the ability is there it may I just haven't tested it yet so that may also be an option for you so these cords go in just like this red goes on this particular side like that I didn't have to make any kind of adjustments on this control panel right here this this monitor boots up without any kind of adjustments and it looks great so when it comes to that that's that's all there so now when it comes to just powering all this you have two different methods and the first method i did whenever i first did this because like i said i was wanting to do function over form so all i did was take the two power cables, because you're going to have two, one for your monitor and one for your PC, and then you can cut like a small hole in the side of the back of your panel and just feed them through to plug into the wall. Now, depending on the kind of computer you use, depends on if it's going to power up when you apply power to it, or do you actually have to use a power button that depends on the kind of computer you use the one I'm using I merely just have to have power going to it and it automatically boots up so that's the method you can do is just plug it in and that's what I was doing but now what I have going now is this I've got this switch that feeds to this outlet and then the monitor and the computer plug in right there and then all I got to do is plug that in right there and then turn that on like that it going into Windows so it loading into Windows it's going to launch up my front end which is Launchbox
14:48
that's my own intro but once you're in here that only gonna do is choose if you want to play and say an arcade game that's the one I want to play we'll hit start button on that now I want a particular where my head I got all these arcade games all these arcade games right here are gonna require quarters it's the one I want to play and I have the option for play so we're gonna build up Street Fighter 2 warrior edition and normally so you can't hit start or do anything because it needs you to insert coin so we'll just insert coin so you can sit there and just rack up the credits as many as you want to or is what the game limited to hit start this joystick goes over here you want two players you can have two players going like that and if I want to exit out of this game I'll just hit my exit button and then I'm back to this screen right here just like that guys so I wanted to show you what I also had to do due to that being where it's at down there that I had to cut a part of the back panel off but it slides in position down there and then you're in position good to go and then you can just power it off with the switch down right here like you do a lot of the normal arcades or certain ones depending on wherever the switch is at and then i'll put like a screw up here through this so that way this is not like that see there we go so there you go that is how i went about converting my arcade one up into a mame Now, I know there's plenty of you out there that wanted more information about, like, the software and how to go about mapping the keys and stuff like that. When it comes to software, guys, and MAME, that would make this video so much longer because there are so many variables involved. Because it's going to depend on the type of front end you use, the emulators that you use, even the operating system when it comes to whether or not you're using a computer or the Raspberry Pi. So when it comes to software and getting that all worked out, I am going to have to plead to you to please look elsewhere. There are plenty of content available on YouTube on how to go about doing this. everything that you're going to need to do what i did i will have links in the description down below if by chance i did happen to miss a link or something like that by all means let me know in the comment section down below and i will try to provide that as soon as possible i mean so how does that look guys i mean i feel like i'm gonna get the coin inserts to light up so that'll give it closer to a realistic look i don't i'm trying to think of what it's going to look like also on camera like do i want it to have like some lights behind it also that shine on the wall i don't i don't know do i want to put this much effort into something like this i i was part of the reason why i got it is that i wouldn't have to throw a bunch of money at the damn thing but i feel like over time I might. I don't know, but I don't think I want to go through all that. I at least want to make the coin door, the coin slot, slide up. That's bare minimum. I at least want to get that done.
18:57
I mean, chances are I'm going to have this arcade one up for a year or so or until it craps out on me and then I'll upgrade to an AtGames Arcade Legends or something like that. I've been hearing a lot of good things about that.