JAMMA is a must for me. While I probably will throw a Naomi in there, I’d really like to be able to use some older PCBs as well.
Are there good JAMMA conversion kits anybody could point me to?
Jammafier. Or make your own JAMMA loom. Lot's of busy work, but fun.
My main reservation about this is that I’ve heard NNC cabs are harder to find parts for since they aren’t as ubiquitous as the Blast City or Astro City cabs.
That was written 10 years ago and is repeated as if it is the gospel. Since then, the newer CRT cab fell out of favor in Japan and were dumped here. Just like the Astro's before them. So you find lots of NNC's in the US now. Not as many as Astro's because the NNC was produced as arcades and CRT tech were waning. But the truth is, parts for Candy cabs, no matter the model, are hard to come by these days. You aren't spared no matter what cab you have. Especially since you are in MN.
The control panel in this one appears to be a 1p Astro City panel, so I’d want to replace it with a NNC 2-player (original or repro). The side art is partly missing so I’d be looking for repro decals as well. The bezel apparently had a lot of stickers on it that were hard to remove and covered with black tape so I’d want to either restore it or look for a replacement.
All of this adds up into a small project. Not a huge fixer-upper project like a cab right out of a shipping container, obviously, but a project nonetheless. I’m just trying to decide how doable this would be for me.
Being in Minnesota, unless you get a Blast from a private collector, you are looking at a project regardless. That NNC you have access to, is a project already. The difference is, with the NNC, you know what you are getting into. If you buy from KC, you're playing roulette. Cereth has stopped taking orders for CRT cabs. That leaves you with Ken at the Gameroom, if he has anything.
Blast City's have the more classic candy box aesthetic to them, but the NNC's aesthetics grows on you. It's by far my favorite cab to look at when off. As far as ease of use goes, NNC beats all Candy cabs in that area. It is so intelligently designed. The Blast City is the Candy cab equivalent of a German car. Such a bitch to work on those things. If you want to be an owner of a Blast, and it is a project, be prepared to lose precious time in your life. But if it is not a project, then all the better. Stickers on a bezel are cake to get rid of. Repro CPO's are not hard to get for an NNC. What is hard to get however is the side art for the NNC. There is a seller that makes nice repro's. He just isn't reputable (Zona Arcade).
Personally, everything being equal and you have a choice between the two (if both had JAMMA looms and are in equal states of disrepair), I'd take an NNC over a Blast City. For the reasons already said. But the main reason being the monitor. The image on the NNC is the pinnacle of CRT gaming goodness. Just don't get the one with the Wei-ya chassis.
that NNC blows the Blast away. Seriously, I had both cabs side by side.
