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Arcade1up Golden Tee Complete MOD!

RetroRalph·video·10m 9s·analyzed·Oct 13, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.017

TL;DR

RetroRalph upgrades Arcade1Up Golden Tee with Hap trackball and arcade PCB, emphasizing authenticity and complexity.

Summary

RetroRalph documents a comprehensive mod of an Arcade1Up Golden Tee cabinet, upgrading it with a Hap trackball (requiring router work on the control panel), additional buttons (backspin/flyby), speaker upgrade, and installing an original Golden Tee Complete arcade PCB with hard drive instead of emulation. He emphasizes the upgrade's quality improvements, gameplay authenticity, and technical complexity while warning viewers about power supply requirements and skill barriers.

Key Claims

  • The stock Arcade1Up trackball is 'actually pretty decent' and doesn't require replacement

    high confidence · RetroRalph, opening remarks acknowledging initial snobbery about wanting Hap trackball

  • Golden Tee Complete contains 20 original courses plus 7 additional new courses from 2001-2005 releases, totaling 27 courses

    high confidence · RetroRalph, explaining game selection rationale

  • Golden Tee Complete emulation has significant audio problems with clipping, making original arcade PCB preferable

    high confidence · RetroRalph, comparing emulation quality to hardware

  • Installing a Hap trackball requires routing out the control panel for flush mounting, which is not a plug-and-play modification

    high confidence · RetroRalph, demonstrating and explaining trackball installation complexity

  • Golden Tee Complete PCB requires specific power supply (from Twisted Quarter) via Molex connectors, not standard JAMMA power

    high confidence · RetroRalph, warning about power supply requirements and potential board damage

Notable Quotes

  • “I didn't want to do this, but then I fell into the trap. Wow, all these golf rounds, I fell into the trap.”

    RetroRalph@ 0:30 — Personal motivation reveal; self-aware humor about the mod rabbit hole

  • “The holes do line up, the mounting holes, but you'll notice I did have to route it out in order to make the trackball flush with the top because the 1UP trackball, it kind of extends out. So you can't just plug and play the Hap trackball unfortunately.”

    RetroRalph@ 2:15 — Technical barrier to Hap upgrade; illustrates modification complexity

  • “So please use the right power supply if you're going to go down this route. And this power supply I picked up from Twisted Quarter. This board actually requires quite a bit of power, so make sure, this is the key, make sure you get the right power supply.”

    RetroRalph@ 4:14 — Critical safety warning; emphasizes non-standard power requirements

  • “If you want to recreate that arcade experience, Hap is the way to go. Or Hap, as they call it. Or I call it.”

    RetroRalph@ 8:00 — Final recommendation on trackball upgrade; value proposition for collectors

  • “This is one of those ones where if you do something wrong, you're going to blow out the board. So just be careful, proceed with caution, and please ask me questions if you need to.”

    RetroRalph@ 9:21 — Risk mitigation and community engagement; acknowledges high stakes of modification

Entities

RetroRalphpersonArcade1UpcompanyGolden Tee CompletegameHapproductTwisted QuartercompanyBRS-40productGolden Teegame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Content creator documentation of complex mods serves educational function for enthusiast community, with emphasis on safety and skill barriers

    high · RetroRalph's explicit warnings about power supply risks, router skill requirements, invitation for questions to prevent mistakes

  • $

    market_signal: Aftermarket ecosystem for Arcade1Up upgrades (Twisted Quarter power supplies, Hap trackballs, BRS-40 speakers) demonstrates secondary market demand for enhanced cabinet components

    medium · Multiple third-party suppliers identified; RetroRalph providing links to specific upgrade vendors

  • ?

    product_strategy: Hap trackball retrofit addresses authenticity gap in Arcade1Up Golden Tee but requires routing work, indicating incomplete out-of-box arcade experience

    high · RetroRalph's extensive effort to make Hap trackball flush; acknowledgment that stock trackball was adequate but Hap provides 'arcade experience 100%'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Arcade1Up hardware ecosystem supports modular upgrades (trackball, speaker, PCB replacement) enabling enthusiast-level customization beyond stock configuration

    high · Complete PCB swap, speaker wiring into JAMMA harness, trackball compatibility with routing modifications

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.030

0:00
I've owned Golden Tees before in the past, and I enjoyed them, but they were always the more modern versions of the game, right? So when I got the Golden Tee Arcade 1-Up, I was kind of underwhelmed, but it was mainly because I wasn't used to those titles, I was used to the more modern ones. And admittedly, I was being a little snobby and wanted a hype trackball, but the trackball that's on there is actually pretty decent, so good job, Arcade 1-Up, it's not bad. But anyways, long story short, in this video, we are actually going to upgrade the Golden Tee. and I'm just saying right now, I didn't want to do this, but then I fell into the trap.
0:36
Wow, all these golf rounds, I fell into the trap. Anyways, all right, guys, whatever. Let's just watch the video, okay? So sit back and enjoy the Arcade 1-Up upgrade.
1:00
Okay, let's waste no time and get right into it. The Golden Tee cabinet is pretty nice. It comes with the custom riser, and I think it just kind of does justice to the original cabinet design. So no complaints there. Here's a flyby of the control panel. It looks really nice. I mean, they did a good job with everything here. You'll notice I made a couple modifications, though, one of them being the trackball. It is 100% a high up now, and that was actually not very easy to do. I'll show you how to do that in a minute. and I had to add the flyby and backspin buttons because that was part of Golden Tee Complete. Here's the marquee. The marquee looks really nice actually. No complaints there and I don't think I'll even change that out. So right now I'm going to give you a look underneath the control panel. So we're going to remove these four screws and then I'll lift up the top and show you what's going on under there. Okay as we lift it up you'll notice you'll see where the trackball is and you'll see it looks like a little bit of a mess and I'll explain why because it wasn't that easy to do. Okay let's take a closer look at the control panel. So these two buttons are backspin and flyby, I had to add those buttons. And the other buttons here are all the stock buttons. So you'll see them right there. I just used all the stock buttons. I didn't replace the buttons. And they're all going into this device. It's actually a replacement for a wire nut if you're used to house wiring, and I'll explain that a little bit later. Here's the HAP trackball. The holes do line up, the mounting holes, but you'll notice I did have to route it out in order to make the trackball flush with the top because the 1UP trackball, it kind of extends out. So you can't just plug and play the half track ball unfortunately I know this is ugly but I not the best at power tools and admittedly is my first time using a router So it be fun to kind of learn how to use that a little bit better as time goes on So again like I said all these buttons are stock buttons This is a speaker upgrade, really easy. You can just wire it right into the JAMA harness. It's the BRS-40 speaker that a lot of us have used. This is the wire harness that I had to buy separately that goes straight to the board. And then the rest of the connections you'll see. I use these little connectors where you can solder connections without actually using a soldering iron. going to use a heat gun and I'll have links in the description of those devices. So let's go onto the back and see what's going on back there. Okay, because the Golden T-Marquee plugs into the stock PCB, I had to do some modifications to that. So I just spliced the end of the wire and you'll expose a red and a black wire. And what you can do is you can just wire this into a 12 volt, one amp power supply. So you can plug it in just like a regular 110 outlet. So if you look here, that's the power supply I used. And you'll notice it goes right into that at the end and it'll just power up when the cabinet powers up because they've got everything going to a single power strip. Okay, so let's quickly take a look at the inside of the cabinet. So there is the PCB. I haven't mounted it yet. Actually, none of the wiring is actually cleaned up yet. There's the arcade power supply. We will go back and I'll show you that in a minute because that is definitely not your normal power supply. And then I have a separate power supply that's running both the marquee and the video converter board so I can get the signal from the arcade board to the VGA. And then that's actually the hard drive that runs the game data, which is actually, you know, somewhat unique to some of these older boards. Some of them actually run the game data on hard drives. So then you'll see that's the interesting piece of it. The game board's powered by these two Molex connectors back here. So very nontraditional for a JAMA board. So this is where you could get tripped up. You power the front of that JAMA board, you're going to blow this thing out. So please use the right power supply if you're going to go down this route. And this power supply I picked up from Twisted Quarter. This board actually requires quite a bit of power, so make sure, this is the key, make sure you get the right power supply, and I'll have a link to the description. So that's kind of it for the back. Let's do some gameplay. Alright, before we get into gameplay, I just wanted to show you, this can be emulated. The problem is it's not emulated very well, so that's why I chose the regular arcade PCB. So for those of you that are unfamiliar in why I picked Golden T Complete, is because it's all the releases spanning from 2001 to 2005. So it has 20 of the original courses plus seven additional new courses. So I figured this is the perfect pairing for this arcade one-up cabinet. And to get a Golden Tee complete in this small of a form factor is pretty much non since the original one was like 350 pounds So that why I chose it All right let boot this puppy up Here it is
5:14
Listen to that hard drive. It's kind of funny when you can listen to a hard drive boot. It's like that noise was so, I don't know, such a noise from the 90s that you always remember, but you don't hear anymore.
5:29
Alright, let's just go straight to gameplay, shall we? Okay, so, you can select a number of players, obviously. We're only going to play one player. I did play with my son the other day. He had a super fun time playing it, but I didn't capture the footage, unfortunately.
5:45
Alright, so like I said, you can select all your courses here, and there's like a bunch to choose from. 27 in total. I'm going to do the amateur course, because, I don't know, why not? We'll just do the front nine. I'm not going to do all nine. I just want to show you guys what it looks like.
5:59
afternoon. But the cool thing is it'll save all the high scores and all that stuff. I haven't really played it too much yet. Now, keep in mind, as you can see, if I touch the backspin button, you can see the backspin will show up there. Flyby works as well. So I had to add those two buttons. But pretty straightforward, the way the game plays. You guys are probably very familiar with the game already, but the Hap trackball feels great. Like I said, the trackball it came wasn't that bad so just keep that in mind that you could maintain that trackball. I'm just gonna put in my initials there.
6:38
What you'll notice if you did try to emulate these games because Golden Tee Complete can be emulated the audio is way off so you'll notice there's some audio clipping if you try to emulate it so this will probably be your best bet if you really love this and you want to upgrade your Golden Tee. Come on. Yeah! See, for the video I did well. That wouldn't have happened if I wasn't filming it. The gameplay is awesome. It works really well. The Hap trackball feels good. It feels true to the original. Oh, that was crappy. Oh, wait. Oh! What? He bounces back on the green. This is one of those things where I feel like I'm going to hit this mountain, but I'm going to give it a shot. All right, Alright, let's try it. We're gonna go, I'm gonna wind up hard. Yeah, did I get over it?
7:24
Dude, that's not actually half bad. Good shot, Peter. Oh come on I just twigged that one all right but as you can see guys it looks really good it plays really good I would recommend the Hap upgrade if you if you really love this game if not you can use the original trackball it's actually not half bad I just feel like if you wanted to recreate the arcade experience 100% or close to it. Aw.
7:59
Dang it. Yeah, if you want to recreate that arcade experience, Hap is the way to go. Or Hap, as they call it. Or I call it.
8:07
It's on, Peter. It's off of one time for both of you. All right, whatever. I'll take it. All right, guys. Let me give you some final thoughts, and we'll wrap this thing up. All right, it's final thoughts time. So would I recommend this? Yes, if you're a Golden Tee fan. Yes, absolutely. Because you'll get, you know, 27 courses. You'll get better graphics. You'll get better sound. You get the commentary, even though it's kind of lame at times. Good job, Peter. But anyways, I really like this. But just keep in mind, it's going to cost you a decent amount of money. And there's some difficulty if you decide you want to go with a Hap Trackball. You got to feel comfortable with a router, which is my first time really using a router. So I always use like hand route, like a routing bit on a Dremel, which is, you know, still kind of difficult to work with. But this was a whole new ballgame. But honestly, I'm really excited now that I know how to use or kind of know how to use a router. But anyways, so just keep in mind, there's a level of effort involved that you may or may not feel comfortable with. And there's also a cost involved that you may or may not feel comfortable with. So money is going to kind of dictate whether you can do this one or not, unfortunately. And if you're a really big Golden Tee fan and I say yes, absolutely, you will have so much more fun with the cabinet. So I'm going to leave some information in the comments below to hopefully help you out. And if you have any questions, definitely reach out to me because this is one of those ones where if you do something wrong, you're going to blow out the board. So just be careful, proceed with caution, and please ask me questions if you need to. Anyways, guys, if you enjoyed the video, please give it a like. Please consider subscribing to the channel. Put your comments below. I want to hear you. Golden Tee fan, do you remember playing this in bars? Like, does this excite you at all, or do you pretty much not care? I mean, I hate golf, like actual golf, but I like Golden Tee. So, hey, you know, I mean, you don't have to necessarily like golf to like Golden Tee. Anyhow, that's it for now, guys. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you on the next one.
9:51
Thank you.