Hey guys, welcome back. So the year is quickly coming to a close and it's making me reflect on the past almost 12 months of the YouTube channel and specifically Arcade 1UP mods. There was one mod in particular that I think didn't get a lot of attention and I'm not really sure why and it was based around Neo Geo and I think maybe it's because it was the early days of my channel. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no clue how to make thumbnails so if I even look at the thumbnail now, I don't think I would have clicked on that. So I wanted to revisit this one because it's just interesting to me. And I think if you're not a Neo Geo fan, or if you are a Neo Geo fan, you should be one because it has so much to offer. No matter what genre of arcade games you like, shoot them up, side-scrolling beat-em-ups, fighting games, it kind of has it all. So in this episode, we're going to take a look back and hopefully you guys enjoy this. So sit back, relax, and let's do it. All right, for those of you that might have missed this original video, we did go through quite a bit. We actually went through how to wire JAMMA, specifically around Neo Geo. We also talked about converter boards, multi-carts, all sorts of things. So if you want, if you're really new to this, then maybe go back and reference that video. But a lot of stuff has changed in the community since this video was made. Obviously, there was no third parties out there creating any kind of things, hardware, control panels, any of that, for the cabinets at that time. So really, modding, you were on your own. So this thing isn't the most beautiful mod, and I'm actually going to show you a couple of offerings that are out there should you decide to do something like this yourself. I'm going to show you really quick what I did, and then I'll actually show you some offerings for artwork kits and things like that that didn't exist when I did this original mod. All right guys, let's dive right into it. So this is the original footage of when I originally filmed this cabinet I don't actually have this cabinet anymore But this is before anybody was making third-party lit marquees actually someone that's very active in the community Bruce Yeager made that for me and we swapped for the 17 inch monitor that was actually in this because that's a 19 inch monitor upgrade the control panel itself is actually a control panel I bond owed and then I downloaded the Directions online of the actual button layout so I could put the real button layout on there for the Neo Geo So that actually a Bondode control panel I think it was a Street Fighter and I Bondode over all the holes Really silly in retrospect, because I could have just cut a new piece of wood. But anyways, I don't know. It was early days, and I was just like, I'll just do anything. I wanted to bust it out really quick, because I thought modding was going to be something that people were going to be interested in when it came to arcade one-ups. But the most unique thing was actually this Neo Geo board, because it's the original, you know, Neo Geo hardware in here, and you could run it as, you know, single carts or a multi-cart system. You know, you could actually put, you know, a multi-cart 161-in-1 in this, and that was kind of the showcase, was like, wow, look, you can really put real arcade hardware in here if you want and kind of make this a legitimate, you know, arcade. So kind of neat. But anyways, again, 19-inch monitor was upgraded. It looks really nice. I'll have links in the description of all the things I used in this. That bezel I actually cut myself, so it was like a piece of textured plastic, and I cut it to make a bezel out of it. So I thought it looked pretty nice. It plays really well. You know, it's a good experience for those fans of Neo Geo, but so much has changed in the community where now there's all these third-party products. I'm going to show you those really quick because if you wanted to build a Neo Geo and use the original hardware, there's so many cool options to make the cabinet look authentic at this point. All right, so hopefully you're inspired to do this, but as of right now, this couldn't be a better time to enter the community and start modding because there's so many products. There's access to information like there never was in the beginning. So here's one thing that's awesome. So you're going to need a base cabinet to start your mod, right? So what you could do is go over to deals.consolekits.com. It's going to be your first stop to find the best deals possible in your area because honestly, you're going to want to find a cheaper base cabinet to do your modifications so you can spend more time and money on the artwork, the insides, and all that stuff because if you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. So find yourself the best deal possible. Make sure it's a horizontal monitor or not a vertical monitor because honestly most of those games were horizontal So you don't want to do that So anyways you can go through here you punch in your zip code and you can start to look at all the deals in Your area your second stop should be Shaino Mac over at DIY retro arcade So go over here and you're gonna see Shane has got Neo Geo MVS hardware and multi carts for sale so you can get all the things I showed in that original video right here So this before you had to go out and hunt for it Shane started carrying it because he realized people were really interested in doing this The other place that you could stop is also at Shane He doesn know I call him that but yeah Shane He's a really cool guy over at DIY Retro Arcade, so you should definitely check him out. But he has control panels that are actually modeled exactly like the Neo Geo. So unlike my sloppy Bondo mess, which honestly I probably took some life, you know, some years off my life because I was breathing it all in. Like, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to wear a mask when you're working with Bondo, so ding! Little tip there. but uh but yeah so you can get a control panel there but if you're looking for the one-stop shop for uh the artwork portion of it you can go over to sabo's arcade so let's check that out real quick all right first stop joe sabo the mr miyagi of arcade artwork okay so mr miyagi aka joe sabo has lots of awesome stuff on his page if you go to his page you can go all the way to the right over here and you'll see there's an arcade one-up link now keep in mind uh he started in traditional arcades so he's pride he's been priding himself on reproduction work so he's very very talented guy um super nice guy by the way and you can expect top quality from him his prices may be a little bit higher but you know you do get what you pay for and i really appreciate the work that he puts into his stuff now keep in mind as of the time of i'm filming this it's kind of getting around that um you know uh black friday time frame so make sure you check for deals and stuff like that and see if maybe you can save yourself a couple bucks on this so second stop is going to be Tyler Goodman. So Tyler is over at Arcade Graphics. He probably was the first person that I bought artwork from, and he was the first person to take full-size artwork kits and scale them down for Arcade 1-Up. So he's been around for a while. He's a really good guy. I've used his products on several mods. You can go back and watch them. There's a bunch of them out there where I used his artwork. So again, like I said, a lot of this stuff wasn't available at the time, but he came onto the scene strong, and still, you know, I think he's doing really well still to this day, and he continues to add more graphics and artwork kits, but he happens to have a Neo Geo one too. So you might want to check him out if this is a path you want to go down. And the third one, but not the only one, there's more actually out there, but these are the ones I'm showcasing, is Escape Pod. Again, keep in mind, as the time I'm filming this, you might want to check for Black Friday deals. But Escape Pod, again, one of those guys that started off in the arcade world and then kind of latched onto this arcade one-up modding scene as it started to gain traction. But he got a great Neo Geo complete artwork kit as well so guys up I I mean I really excited for you because this stuff didn exist when I started doing this as far as the arcade one mods So there all these options to really build yourself a top quality and really awesome reproduction of a Neo Geo cabinet much better than the one I originally started with. So, uh, you can also reference back to my old video. If you need to figure out, you know, how do I wire this thing up? That, that all still applies. Nothing's changed there. All right, guys, it's final thoughts time. So if you're like me, Neo NeoGeo was one of these almost unattainable things as a kid, and now you can afford to build your own sort of NeoGeo DreamCab. Now keep in mind, I'm showing it with original hardware, but you don't have to. You can emulate NeoGeo with a Pi, you can do it with a PC, actually that's how I'm doing it right now. So there's a bunch of different ways to do it, and so it's a convenient way that you can get this going at home and build your own Arcade 1-Up, and hopefully you'll see with the links I provided that there's plenty of places to source the artwork and other stuff from. I wish that this stuff was accessible to me when I first started on the arcade one-up modding, but it wasn't. So the cool thing is, bad for me, but good for you. And good for all these companies, right? Because they're all really good guys trying to make some money in a hot market right now. And they're all really helpful. So depending on what you want to do, they can really help you out. In this case, we're talking about Neo Geo, but there's so many different types of artwork and systems you can build, whether it be a multi-cart system with Neo Geo, or you want to build your own multi-cade with a Pi. There's many, many avenues to go down. So hopefully this video was helpful for you if this was specific to Neo Geo. But keep in mind, those vendors that I showcased do a lot more than that. So guys, that's it. That's enough. I hope you guys have an amazing Thanksgiving. So I believe I'm probably going to publish this around Thanksgiving time frame. So hopefully you're able to kind of enjoy this over your Thanksgiving break or holiday off work or whatever it might be. So thanks again, guys, for watching this. Please consider subscribing. Please like the video if this was helpful to you. And put your comments below. I want to hear what you have to say. So, guys, take care. Have a great Thanksgiving. And we will see you on the next one. .