The Art of Building an Arcade PCB Experience: A Journey Through CRTs and Modern Monitors

As a retro gaming enthusiast, I've always been fascinated by the idea of recreating the arcade experience at home. For me, it's not just about playing classic games on a modern TV or computer; it's about immersing myself in the nostalgia of the original arcade boards. In this article, I'll take you through my journey of building an arcade PCB experience that meets my specific requirements.

One of the first challenges I faced was finding a suitable CRT monitor for vertically scrolling screens. In my case, the only CRT I have with both v-hold and RGB is a 12-inch Sony PVM, which is just too small for long-term use. I've tried other options, such as VGA monitors like the 17-inch Viewsonic, but they require additional conversion to accommodate the different refresh rates of arcade games. Most VGA monitors only accept 31kHz horizontal refresh rates, while arcade games typically output 15kHz instead.

To address this issue, I've been using a video converter called the OSSC (Original Super Scope Converter), which takes RGB signals and converts them into a crispy, well-behaved HDMI video signal. However, this requires another adapter to connect my VGA monitor, which muddies up the signal a bit. I initially wanted a PARSEC SuperGun with a video daughterboard, but it only outputs a 15kHz signal, not 31. As an alternative, I've been using the GBS-8220, which provides 31kHz over VGA, but its interface is a pain to use and the output is somewhat soft.

A better option for me has been the Irken Labs RetroScaler A1, which uses line doubling to up the 15kHz signal to 31kHz as clean and lag-free as possible. This solution is ideal for CRT monitors and has become my go-to choice. I've also experimented with modern LCD monitors, which offer convenience and a larger screen size. One such monitor is this rotating stand, which makes it easy to install on the TV and enjoy vertically scrolling games like Raiden Fighters 2.

Another consideration I had was storing these components, as they can be awkward in terms of size and shape. Measuring anywhere from 10x16x1/2 inch to 16x19x4 inches and beyond, they require careful storage to prevent warping or damage. I've found that using Kraft Tab Locking boxes is a suitable solution for storing my arcade PCBs, and I plan to add color labels in the future to make them easy to identify.

In the end, building an arcade PCB experience has been a rewarding journey, despite the challenges and costs involved. While it's not cheap, having multiple classic arcade boards at my disposal makes up for the expense. There are many other options available to enthusiasts, such as building a multicade cabinet or using MAME emulation, but there's something special about running actual arcade boards on their own outside of a cabinet.

For me, experiencing the magic of an original arcade board is a significant part of the hobby. Playing classic games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles through a modern TV is a chuckle-worthy experience that brings back memories of my childhood. I'm grateful to be part of a community that has made it possible for enthusiasts to recreate this experience at home.

As always, thank you very much for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to LGR for more retro gaming content and tutorials on various retro teche topics.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to an LGR ‘Cade thing!And this time we’re gonna take a look atone of my technological obsessions:playing classic arcade gamesstraight from the original hardware.That’s right, no emulation here!I’m talkin' legit arcade printed circuitboards, or PCBs, adapted for use with thedisplay and control method of your choosing.Turns out it’s a relatively straightforwardendeavorwith the right combination of conversion hardware.And that’s what we’re exploring today!Setting up and playing arcade PCBs using thingslike JAMMA SuperGuns, interface converters,RGB video transcoders, input adapters andmore.This won’t be an exhaustive overview ofevery possibility, and there’s always theodd snag to solve with certain games, butI hope this proves informative regardless.And if nothing else, just sit back, relax,and enjoy some retro arcade gaming goodness.-Augh!Right, so!There are five components key to makin’things happen: an arcade PCB, a SuperGun device,a power supply, a controller, and a display.And possibly a video converter or two, dependingon your display.So naturally, the first step is acquiringan arcade PCB in the first place.And for me that first board was Raiden IIfrom 1993,one of my all-time favorites from back in the day.By and large, finding standalone PCBs is alot easier than finding the complete cabinet,since so many cabs were scrapped and repurposedover the years.And plenty of boards were sold on their ownas conversion kits as well, like Capcom’s1942 here, intended to be placed into a generic cabinetor swapped in to upgrade an older one.As for pricing, market values are all overthe place.I’ve got some for as little as 75 dollarsshipped, while others cost several hundredbucks when all was said and done.Either way, it goes without saying that PCBs are often far more affordablecompared to a full machine.Paying $150 for Primal Rage may seem a bit silly at first, but compared to a thousanddollars plus 600 shipping for the full cabinet?It becomes a bit more palatable.Primal Rage was the second PCB I purchasedby the way, this gigantic Atari GT Systemboard, complete with its two daughterboards screwed in on topand a solid metal plate underneath.Not only is it one of my all-time favoritesfrom 1994, but as of this recording it’sstill not fully emulated with 100% accuracydue to the on-board security chip, so havingthe original PCB is currently the best wayto play it.It’s also a good example of a board thatneeds a little extra attention to get working.I’ve done a whole video about this overon my Blerbs channel, but the gist of it isthat the sound won’t play unless you connectthese boards together using the appropriate cables.And the controls won’t fully work eitherwithout an adapter like this one, the JNX Rage.Yeah, one of the buttons doesn’t work unlessyou either have the original wiring harnessor use an adapter, even though it’s a JAMMAPCB.JAMMA, by the way, stands for Japan AmusementMachine and Marketing Association.And it’s a standard used by most arcadegames from 1987 to the early 2000s, made aftera buncha companies came together in the 80sand agreed on a universal wiring standard.And it’s this JAMMA standard that SuperGundevices are meant to connect to and convert.For older games that don’t use JAMMA though,there are a couple different options.One is just wiring up your own JAMMA adapter,stringing together the connections and makingsure it all lines up between the two.Another option is getting one of these conversionboards, which a multitude of hobbyists haveput together and offered for sale for populararcade PCBs, making it easy to adapt themto work with a JAMMA SuperGun.Speaking of which, the SuperGun is reallythe heart of this whole setup and ultimatelydetermines everything else you need.To put it simply, SuperGuns are devices thatplug into the JAMMA connector of an arcadePCB and convert it to a set of standard A/Vinputs and outputs.This way you can skip needing an arcade wiringharness, and can easily plug in your own stuff.Just attach your PCB right here, plug in a15-pin Neo Geo-style joystick over here, insertyour video cable and any speakers or headphones here, and in this case,connect a standard ATX PC power supply.And for a good number of games, that’s it!You’re good to go assuming you’ve gota compatible display.There are buttons on the SuperGun for insertingcoins and accessing service menus, but everythingelse happens on the joystick itself, withthe game happily playing along just like it’ssitting in a real arcade machine.What a sight to behold,8 year old me would have no idea what to think of this.As for which SuperGun to use, that dependson your needs and desires.There’s a whole slew of SuperGuns out therewith wildly varying features and connections,often hand-built in small quantities by enthusiasts.One of the most popular being the Home ArcadeSystem, or HAS SuperGun.Unfortunately though, actually getting yourhands on one can be tricky,with limited production runs and waiting lists.So I went with something cheap and readilyavailable, at least at first:this Retroelectronik Essentials Basic.It’s nothing to write home about but itdid the job when I was just getting started.Before long I upgraded to Retroelectronik’sPro Gamer 1.3.This does the same thing as the Basic model,but it also has a built-in power regulatorto generate a negative five volt rail righton the board.If you’re using a newer ATX power supply,that’s important to have, since certaingames will require negative five volts torun properly.This was commonplace on older power supplies,but on modern ones it’s pretty much disappearedentirely, so a SuperGun with a regulator isconvenient for games like NBA Jam TournamentEdition that require negative five volts topower the sound board.On games like this, the main board handleseverything but sound, so you need this soundPCB to go along with it, populated with theproper allotment of ROMs for Tournament Edition.But back to the power supply and the regulator though,because this ATX solution isn’t always optimal.Depending on your PSU, you may get more or less voltage than you need,causing some games to grow unstable.In that case, you’ll want a proper arcadepower supply instead of ATX, with a voltageadjustment knob to dial things in precisely.However, even with power sorted I wasn’tdone trying different SuperGuns yet.My final selection, for the time being, isthe PARSEC Supergun version 2.1.It’s only available in small batches eachmonth,but it’s worth the wait if you’re into what it’s offering.For one thing it’s a lot smaller, not botheringwith any extraneous terminals, while alsoproviding additional things like compositeand S-Video outputs.And instead of a full-sized SCART connector,it uses an 8-pin mini-DIN connector for RGB,same exact type used on devices like the Framemeister.As an aside, I’ve got one of those too,but I don’t really like the results I getwith many arcade games, and find the OpenSource Scan Converter, or OSSC,has a cleaner and less laggy output.Another reason I wanted a PARSEC was its daughterboardsupport, like this one that adds both 15-pinVGA and component video output with composite and TTL level syncing,for RGB output without a SCART adapter.Oh and another thing I like on the PARSECis the more standard kick harness interface,this little 6-pin JST header.The Retroelectronik boards use this 9-pind-sub instead, whereas the Home Arcade System,the PARSEC, and others have been going with this 6-pin JST connection,so it seemed like the better choice.As for what the kick harness does, well, it’sfor gameswith lots of action buttons or more than two players.The JAMMA standard supports three buttonsplus start for up to two players, so if agame needed more than that, you use a kickharness on top of JAMMA.And in the case of a SuperGun,that means you need to connect the harness to the device itself.There are tons of standards too, with Capcom,Midway, Atari, Namco and others all usingdifferent kick harness connectors, so youneed to either solder together a harness yourselfor just grab a pre-built one online.And finally, I also wanna mention arcade systemsthat require separate plug-in cartridges,like the Neo Geo MVS and the Sega ST-V, amongothers.Systems like these require not only the systemPCB but a separate game cartridge,designed so that arcade owners could easily swap outold games for new ones without buying a new machine.And yep, they use JAMMA too, so you can hook them up to a SuperGunjust like any of the others.Of course, this cartridge approach also opensup a new set of arcade collection options,since the game carts themselves are oftenless expensive and easier to find than anentire dedicated arcade game PCB.And personally, I really enjoy collectingMVS games anyway, with their giant cartridgesthat tuck nicely into these Southtown shockboxes.As for the Neo Geo system itself, this onehere is an MV-1FZ, which is one of the manydifferent single slot MVS boards.There are two, four, and six slot boards aswell, but I’m happy with just the one.It’s also got this nice Lions3 acrylic caseto make it a bit easier to mount cartridgesand protect the board itself.The prevalence of Neo Geo hardware in thearcade scene is one reason so many SuperGunschoose that as its controller port as well.Not only are they pretty excellent sticksand pads in their own right, but the 15-pininterface supports all kinds of stuff beyondjust the four face buttons,start, and select of the MVS.In fact, what I use the most these days area couple of these Namco arcade sticksfor the PlayStation.I actually like the build and buttons betterthan the stock MVS, and the fact that youget more buttons laid out in a row like thismakes it ideal for fighting games with morethan four buttons.Obviously it needs to be converted though,so I use these PlayStation to Neo Geo v3 adaptersfrom Retroelectronik.These are a step up from other adapters Ihave, in that they allow for autofire speedadjustment and complete input remapping, soyou can customize each button to match thelayout of different arcade games.Oh and one more thing regarding controllersand games designed for 3 or more players.In titles like The Simpsons, X-Men, or TMNThere, the way you usually choose your characteris by physically selecting their assignedjoystick on the cabinet.But what if you’ve only got two joysticks?You can only select the first two characters,right?Normally, yes, most of these are 4 playerboards.Thankfully, there are also ROM swaps available,often known as 2-player conversion kits.Swapping out these chips on your PCB willallow every character in these games to beselected using any joystick, regardless ofwhere they’re physically plugged in.Something to keep in mind if you don’t have3 or 4 joysticks hooked up using a kick harness.Moving into the display, since there are thingsto consider with both analog and digital video.Most SuperGuns are made to output 75 ohm signalssuitable to consumer televisions, making itpretty simple to just plug and play on mostTVs and monitors.Being that SCART isn’t a thing here in theUS though, you may need to use a transcoderif your SuperGun only has SCART.I use this Retrotink RGB to Component box,which passes a clean SCART signal throughto the YPbPr inputs on TVs like this SonyTrinitron.However, this doesn’t work with every game.A few boards I have, like Mortal Kombat 2,output a signal that results in a verticallyrolling screen on all my consumer TV sets.And in my case, the only CRT I have with bothv-hold and RGB is this 12” Sony PVM, whichis just too small for long term use.Another option is to use a VGA computer monitor, like this 17” Viewsonic.And while it looks superb, there’s a littlebit of trickery going on here.See, most VGA monitors like this only accept31kHz horizontal refresh rates.While arcade games, for the most part, tendto output 15kHz instead.So unless you’re lucky enough to have amultisync VGA monitor, you’re going to needto convert the conversion with another converter.For most situations like this, I really likeusing the OSSC, which takes RGB signals andconverts them over to a crispy, well-behavedHDMI video signal.Of course, that means I need to use yet anotheradapter with my VGA monitors since they don’ttake HDMI, which muddies up the signal a bit.As stated before, this is one reason I wanteda PARSEC SuperGun with the video daughterboard.But that still only outputs a 15kHz signal,not 31.For this reason, a lotta folks end up usingsomething like the GBS-8220, which does thejob in terms of providing 31kHz over VGA.But the interface is a pain to use and theoutput is somewhat soft.A far better option is the Irken Labs RetroScaler A1, which uses line doubling to upthe 15kHz signal to 31kHz, as clean and lag-freeas possible, ideal for CRT monitors.Sometimes though, I still end up using a modernLCD monitor instead.As much as I love CRTs,they can be a hassle to set up and I don’t always have a ton of room.Plus, this one has built-in speakers and I’vegot it installed on this rotating stand, makingit a nice choice for vertically scrollingshooters like Raiden Fighters 2 here.Or any other tate vertical mode games really,of which there were plenty.Turning a tube on its side is awesome tooof course, but I’d really like a largerPVM or BVM before going down that route.Besides, a decent LCD combined with the OSSC,and maybe some subtle scanline emulation here and there?I think it looks great, all things considered,and the convenience factor alone goes a long way.The last thing I wanna touch on real quickis actually storing these things,because, ah.Yeah, they’re a tad awkward in the sizeand shape department,measuring anywhere from 10x16x1/2 inchon up to 16x19x4 inches and beyond.And it’s best to store them vertically,like you would vinyl records or computer games,due to gravity existing and warping stuffthat shouldn’t be warped.I’ve tried several storage solutions, butI’ve settled on these Kraft Tab LockingIn the future I plan to print out some nicecolor labels for each box, styled after thearcade marquees for the games themselves.But yeah, simple Dymo labels work well enough for now.And that’s about it for the arcade PCB experience,at least for this video!It’s been quite the process putting togethera setup that makes sense for what I want,and it hasn’t exactly been cheap, if I’mbeing honest.But it’s also hugely rewarding, and it’snot nearly as hard on the wallet or on storagespace as buying complete machines either.Which I mean, I’ve got one of those too,this Missile Command cabaret cabinet from 1980.I’ve had a blast fixing it up and I lovethe way it looks.But it’s only one game, after all, so beingable to have a bunch more ready to playat any time is a treat.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against buildinga multicade cabinet or using MAME emulation,both are also fantastic options.There are even FPGA solutions now that providehighly accurate recreations of original arcade hardware.But to me, there’s an almost magical qualityto actual arcade boards, and running themon their own outside of a cabinet feels wrongin the best kind of way.Like, just seeing an arcade classic like TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles running flawlessly througha modern TV is a downright chuckle-worthything to experience, and I’m psyched thatthe hobbyist community has come togetherto make it so easy for arcade newcomers to pull off.And if you enjoyed this video then great!I’ve covered more arcade stuff in the past,and release videos on all kinds of retro techeach week right here on LGR.And as always, thank you very much for watching!\n"