Centipede & Cocktails

2008 began with promise and a new project. Vi was trolling Craigslist and came across a find. A fellow arcade builder was getting rid of his cocktail arcade cabinet, and wanted someone to come get it pronto. I called to let him know I was coming, and headed out first thing this morning. Within 45 minutes, I returned with an original Centipede table-top, or "cocktail" cabinet. The cab is missing all the internal electronics, coin box, and control panels. It is, however, a fantastic project I can not wait to take on. I pulled out an old laptop which I promptly disassembled to use the LCD screen. After poking around the interwebs, I found no cheap and/or easy way to connect an old laptop LCD to a desktop computer. So, my screen choices are going to be limited to custom-fitting an old CRT or find some really cheap serial-connected LCD screen. I also need to dig up a faster spare computer to run the emulators. Since the control panels are already missing, I'm considering moving the control panel locations to a far-end configuration, instead of the closer mid-table configuration of the original Centipede cab.