Hello Everyone:
In the past, I've done two scratch builds - a Ms. Pac, and a DK jr. I've got the itch again and am thinking of a Galaga, and am looking over the availability and prices of all the equipment needed (Looks like a decent board is going to cost quite a bit).

Anyway, and I hope this has not already been answered (I've searched and didn't find it) but what's everybody using these days for monitors? For galaga, it looks like it needs a standard resultion 19 inch monitor, which in my mind would be something like an Electohome G07, or maybe a WG stardard 19 inch. However, its been a few years, and now I see that these monitors are pretty hard to come by.

As far as making an LCD fit in the cabinet, I'm scratch building which I'll use a Big Event Golf I have which is in a Pac cabinet as a template to make the cab.

But my questions are:
1) How do the LCD's look? I'll bet not as good as a CRT, but is it generally OK?
2) Are there LCD monitors out there that are vertical/horizontal, or are they controlled by a dip switch or something?
3) Lastly, of course - cost; the ones I've seen on Happ & WG's site are between $300-$400. Quite a bite.

I'm also kicking around getting a multi board because between the pcb and the monitor I'm already at about $700, but the site I've been looking at does not have much of anything in stock.

Anyway, its been a few years since I've done this, and I haven't been paying too much attention, and now I find that there's a problem with monitors, and I figure this topic has to have been discussed and something decent has to be out there.

Any suggestions/insights would be welcome.

Thanks,
Joe

Hey Joe and welcome to AF!

Well it all depends on what you want to use the cabinet for .. Will it be dedicated Galaga or MAME/Jamma? If you're going for a multigame cab then I'd personally recommend a WG trisync. They're easy to setup and I haven't seen any other monitor perform as good when it comes to multiple res/refresh rates. On the other hand, they're very expensive and if you want a 19" they're not very easy to find (unless you want to pay $500 in shipping costs).

The LCD's look decent but not authentic at all imo. Of course, if you use MAME you can apply overlay effects like scanlines, blurryness etc., but if you've ever used a real arcade monitor you really don't want to take the huge step back to LCD.

The positive thing about LCD's is that they are light and cheap though and it's easy to make a rotation stand so you can easily switch between horiz/vertical.

Basically, if you want an authentic build then you must use an arcade monitor, there are really no other options if you want that true arcade image.

I know Happ sells some arcade LCD's, but they're still LCDs.. I'll look around and see if I can come up the specs of some decent 19"-21" arcade monitors that you can use for your project.

Thanks for the help!

It just looks like the availability of CRTs are getting less and less. All of the games I have now have CRTs (two of them are Nintendos with that inverse video and audio amp built in so they're even harder to replace), but eventually they all will die, and be replaced by what will probably be inferrior from that standpoint of the picture.


For what the cabinet will be, right now I'm teetering between a dedicated galaga and a multi. I really like the thought of having many games in one cabinet, but there's something about a dedicated machine with what would have original parts where it counts.

There's also the cost factor. The cost of a galaga board is 200+ these days. Buying off ebay isn't too fun either because I've gotten burned once before on a DK Jr. board. The board was sold working, then when I got it I noticed burned/blackened resistors. So the only choice is to buy off a reputable dealer which would cost about $250.00 for one, where a jamma board with 50+ games is about $150.00


Anyone have one of these boards? Are they worth it? Are you using a CRT or an LCD monitor? How does it look with an LCD?

Thanks for all your help,

Joe

Your best bet is to buy a couple galaga boards and then send them out to a good repair person, they can usually take the boards and repair one while using parts off another.

I have an original complete Galaga board for sale if your interested. It's not tested tho but I know all the chips are on it. There is no burnt connections or bad looking trace either, so I would almost bet the board works to some extent. I can then send you to a guy that checks and repairs Galaga boards. He is in Texas and has done many of them. He charges like 60 bucks plus parts and it could be more if there is any major repairs on it but he turns out good work. Just email me at sales (at) michiganclassicarcade.com