Star Tech Journal

SNK Neo•Geo Kit Installation Response
Tony Gonzalez
Romstar Technical Staff
Torrance, California
FACTORY CoMMENTS
1. There is some confusion concerning the dedi-
cated and kit formats. Please make note of the
fact that Romstar has licensed the 1 slot
Neo•Geo as a kit. The kit is quite competitively
priced with market needs, and it returns a good
ROI. SNK markets the dedicated units only.
Also, the price of the home Neo•Geo system is
premium compared to other home systems. The
home system will have little to no effect on the
earnings of the arcade system.
2. The usage of a mono speaker hookup is not
recommended with the Neo•Geo kit. The reasons
behind this are two-fold. The kit is designed to
resemble more a dedicated game than a regular
conversion kit. The stereo sound increases
player enjoyment and earnings. The second
speaker is included with the kit, so the recom-
mended installation will not require any extra
speakers to be purchased.
The other reason for the recommended stereo
hookup is that people leave the switch to the
STEREO position when attempting to use a
monophonic speaker. THIS WILL DESTROY
TIIE SOUND CIRCUITRY!!!! The repair cost will
be large on this occurrence, since most of the
sound generators and amplifier circuits will be
destroyed in this occurrence. If the recom-
mended speaker hookup is followed, there will
be no problem.
3. The control panel provided with the Neo•Geo
kit is designed to make the kit installation easier.
The argument concerning a weakened control
panel structure is invalid.
The Romstar Technical Staff has done a wide
variety of cabinets in-house and has not had a
weakened control panel structure problem. The
kit includes enough mounting bolts to fully
install the control panel. Naturally, if a lesser
amount of bolts were installed, then the panel
would not have the full structural strength.
Also, the panel has been re-engineered to fit
certain cabinet sizes which did not work with the
older control panel size. Later kits have shipped
with the newer size control panel. The marquee
size has also been upgraded for this reason.
4. On the difficulty of installing the Neo•Geo kit,
this point is true. It is not unduly difficult,
though. There is a different set of assemblies to
mount, and the LED assembly is a slightly tricky
procedure. The manual does guide the techni-
cian through the mounting steps, so it is not
considered to be a problem.
The reason for the higher complexity of the kit is
that the kit is designed to look more like a
dedicated game. The new control panel assem-
bly no longer resembles the past kits of tiny
stick-on labels and generic overlay types. The
Neo•Geo kit closely resembles the dedicated
Neo•Geo cabinet system, at an affordable price.
At the last ACME show, the main exhibit was a
set of older cabinets which were converted using
the Romstar Neo•Geo conversion kits. The ex-
hibit had a large impact on operators and dis-
tributors alike. These units did not resemble
regular conversion kits, but rather customized
dedicated cabinets.
The use of shortcuts mentioned in the March
articles will lessen the impact of the game, and
affect earnings accordingly. If there is any ques-
tions or comments about this article, please feel
free to contact the Romstar Technical Staff at
(213)539-2744.