Dec 7, 2000...     The Decision has been made, the plans are laid out, the controls have been bought Beta Testing starts tomorrow.  We are going with the LuSiD's arcade flashback plans, we have purchased 16 Happ buttons  and are awaiting there arrival.  We have checked the status of possible control interfaces and decided to hack 2 USB Microsoft Sidewinder joysticks, and add a USB interface hidden under the control panel to add additional controls such as a flight stick for playing games like star wars and Red Barron, the ability to add a steering wheel to play games like pole position and to add more controls for a 4 player TMNT or Gauntlet : ).

    Tomorrow we will begin testing the monitor (27" TV) with the system using windows 98 as our interface ( We decided to go with that so we could play games like Dragon's Lair and Golden Tee Golf CD rom titles. A Voodoo 3500 tv card as our output, Dont know how it will work since I do know we will have to have a Computer Monitor set up to install the machine and get the tv card set up for the proper output, but once its set I haven't had problems running it like this in the past.

    Also will be adding links soon for the construction phase of the cabinet, Pics showing us goofing off building, and playing the cabinet.  The only real thing standing in our way right now is the Time.  X-mas is coming up and money will be tight, but that not going to stop us from sitting Indian style on the floor with two sidewinders in our hands playing burger time till our eyes pop out : )

    TILL NEXT UPDATE

Dec 4, 2000...    Well the Joust Cabinet did not show up, so were on to plan B...  Look like were going to go with building our own.  After hunting the web for cheap plans I found the best plans FREE and it will only cost about $50 in materials and a week or so of cutting, building and finishing. That's just the cost of the wood and screws and glue, not the cost of everything such as joysticks and buttons, coin door, screen (Still not sure what to use for that) I have an old 27" JVC with SVHS inputs, that should work fine...

 The plans for the home made cabinet are available at   
LuSiD's Arcade Flashback 
No Email address for him though so I can't send him a thanks for the plans memo. Maybe he will jump to this page and see for him self...  Till our cabinet is built here is a pic of his so you can see what it will look like.

Dec 2, 2000...    This is not our actual cabinet but hopefully it will be in this good of condition.  The cabinet is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and then the fun begins.  Hopefully that control panel will be big enough to hold the control layout we need.
More tomorrow if and when the Cab shows...