Welcome to the build log!

Well here we are! It has been a crazy past few weeks trying to get everything lined up to start the first stages of building the Winnitron NYC. I wanted to try to cover everything that has happened so far. Alex went to GDC this year, I was unable to go, and while there he played the Winnitron1000 and instantly knew that the indie games scene in NYC needed one of these things. The scene in New York is really strong and tightly knit.

When Alex contacted me asking if I wanted to help out with a Winnitron cabinet I got super stoked and started immediately trying to find cabinets online. This unfortunately was a bust since everything was either in full working order and thus hundreds over what we wanted to spend or wasn't really in the design we were looking for.

PAXeast was coming up so I decided to go up just to hang out and meet some friends. At PAX the American Classic Arcade Museum had an amazing classic arcade set up. We hung out in there a bunch to get some ideas for cool cabinet designs. On the way out we let them know what we were doing with the Winnitron and they thought it was cool so they got the head of the ACAM to come and talk to us. His name is Gary and he is the nicest dude in the world. He told us so much about classic arcade games and gave us some tips on what to look for, what not to look for and how to make sure we don't piss off too many collectors by gutting the wrong cabinets. He really loved the idea of the Winnitron and so we exchanged information. Since he runs the largest classic arcade in the world I figured he would be a good person to be in contact with! So back at home a couple days later I went in to my local arcade to see if I could shoot the shit with any of the owners or see if they had any busted cabinets they might want to give up. One of the guys in there said that they get 90% of their older stuff from auctions and that I should look in to it. At home I started to pull up some auctions and lo and behold there was one happening the next day at 8 am about 2 and a half hours from my house! I called up my friend, we rented a Uhaul van and went up.

Too many games!

It was really amazing, there were probably over 250 different arcade games from all eras. Most working, some not and some really out there stuff too. Since it was an "amusements" auction in addition to having arcade games they also had pinball, racing games, jukeboxes, gambling machines, pool tables, dancing games, claw games with stuffed animals and all sorts of other crazy shit. So we ended up having to wait about 4 hours for them to get to the bidding on the actual arcade games but it was worth the wait because we just got to play a ton of cool games. We ended up bidding on 6 different cabinets and walking out of there with 3. A Tekken 2 that  is in some old Atari cabinet from '82. A Twin Eagle II cabinet and a Zero Gunner that was put in some old '85 cabinet that looks really cool. We got our cabinets all wrapped up and barely shoved in the van almost literally by a couple of inches and took them home. It was really cool to have three working arcade cabinets in my house for a little while but the Zero Gunner has accepted it's fate. I almost feel bad taking out their hearts and replacing them with Winnitron awesomeness.... almost!

Well we want to get our cabinet done really soon and up to NYC so we are going to be working on in pretty much any free seconds that we have. In the last couple of days I have ordered buttons, joysticks and tmolding. The colors on all of those is a surprise! Also we ordered an ipac2 and hundreds of feet of wire, probably enough from 3 cabinets worth! So far the Bit Collective guys have been extremely helpful and quick to answer our questions. These next few days are going to have a ton of updates so please keep in contact with us and let us know if you want to help out by leaving comments below. 

On a side note, the American Classic Arcade Museum is doing a fundraiser at their website and every donation to them helps to keep their classic games in tip top shape. They are a non profit and every couple of bucks helps out! Check it out here!