Nintendo HEAD-ON-N Cocktail Cabinet, nice pictures ;-)

[freewilly]

Hi everyone,

My first post here, so please excuse by noobiness...

A friend of mine is financially in a tough spot and I try to help her to sell some of her stuff.
Lo and behold, I found a very good condition Head-On-N cocktail arcade table in her attic!



The table looks in quite perfect condition for being 32 years old...
It seems it used to be a Nintendo HEAD-ON-N game, judging from the front and side plates

     

But later probably refitted to PacMan and Pengo

          

Also the inside looks in decent condition with the one exception of the missing monitor:



Here are the Joystick, buttons and some wiring. All wires seem to be in place and connected except of course for the missing monitor:

   

Some wiring diagrams in Japanese:

     

And here finally the front and back of the original CPU/Mainboard:

     


I hope you enjoyed the pics 

Now to my questions:

1. As I'm trying to maximize the sale price for my friend, would it be advisable to sell the table as is (keeping in mind that the monitor is missing) or would it be better (money wise) to convert the table into a MAME unit and sell the CPU/mainboard separately?

2. If the latter, where would be the best place to sell such a mainboard?

Thanks for your advise!
Marc

[SavannahLion]

Well.... I've never heard of Head-On-N but it appears to be a licensed game from Gremlin (merged with SEGA then sold off) to Nintendo. So... I would sell it to someone who is capable of dumping it for MAME. I would check the MAME DB but the site doesn't work and I'm too lazy to go and check any of my cabs for that particular game. Not a whole lot is coming up in a Google either. However.....

That board there isn't a Head-On-N. The first clue are the Pengo and Pac-Man stickers. Clue #2 is the hack job with the blue connector. Clue #3 is the board diagrams not matching with the board in question. So a Google search for the board numbers reveal it's already in MAME under mappy.c. It's listed as Grobda, Pac-Man and Chomp Chomp. I can't see the IC's very well, but since the Pac-Man sticker is on there, one can easily extrapolate what the board and at least some of the history of that cabinet.

You'll probably net more money by selling off the components for what it is. Those stickers look to be very nice so I'm sure someone will want scans if they haven't been done (that's as a favor, just pointing it out) then MAMEing the cabinet itself. That's if you want to put in that extra work though.

I'll probably get shot for this, but quite honestly, Head-On doesn't look like the type of game that would be worth restoring said cabinet back to 100% unless you were selling to some diehard SEGA/Nintendo fan that has to have every cab ever made for their fanboyism fetish. I like retro styles myself so if I did the MAMEing, I would probably restore the look but not the electronics inside.

[RyuHayabusa78]

That thing is too nice to turn into a MAME machine. Personally I'd try to restore it. Maybe you can look up the serial number and see what game it was originally and get the board and a new monitor for it. I hate to see old cabinets like this MAME'd when there are so many Neo Geo and assorted Dynamos that can be used.

[freewilly]

Well.... I've never heard of Head-On-N but it appears to be a licensed game from Gremlin (merged with SEGA then sold off) to Nintendo. So... I would sell it to someone who is capable of dumping it for MAME. I would check the MAME DB but the site doesn't work and I'm too lazy to go and check any of my cabs for that particular game. Not a whole lot is coming up in a Google either. However.....

That board there isn't a Head-On-N. The first clue are the Pengo and Pac-Man stickers. Clue #2 is the hack job with the blue connector. Clue #3 is the board diagrams not matching with the board in question. So a Google search for the board numbers reveal it's already in MAME under mappy.c. It's listed as Grobda, Pac-Man and Chomp Chomp. I can't see the IC's very well, but since the Pac-Man sticker is on there, one can easily extrapolate what the board and at least some of the history of that cabinet.

You'll probably net more money by selling off the components for what it is. Those stickers look to be very nice so I'm sure someone will want scans if they haven't been done (that's as a favor, just pointing it out) then MAMEing the cabinet itself. That's if you want to put in that extra work though.

I'll probably get shot for this, but quite honestly, Head-On doesn't look like the type of game that would be worth restoring said cabinet back to 100% unless you were selling to some diehard SEGA/Nintendo fan that has to have every cab ever made for their fanboyism fetish. I like retro styles myself so if I did the MAMEing, I would probably restore the look but not the electronics inside.

Hey, thanks for the quick reply, highly appreciated!

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Sell the cabinet as a Mame table and sell the original CPU separately. Where would I go to sell an original CPU? Ebay or are there more specialized sites?

As I mentioned, I think the board was initially programmed with HEAD-ON because that's what's printed on the front and side panels. Later on, it was reprogrammed and switched to PacMan and even later to Pengo, because these are the description leaflets under the glass with Pengo being the one on the top and PacMan hidden underneath Pengo.

I already have a Dell Pentium 4 with a decent ATI graphic board and a 17" LCD Panel, so converting it to MAME should be relatively painless, I hope.
Thanks for the tip regarding the stickers although they are in Japanese... Cheers

[freewilly]

That thing is too nice to turn into a MAME machine. Personally I'd try to restore it. Maybe you can look up the serial number and see what game it was originally and get the board and a new monitor for it. I hate to see old cabinets like this MAME'd when there are so many Neo Geo and assorted Dynamos that can be used.

I tend to agree with you, but the owner really really needs the cash. Therefore the question is not what is morally the better way, but what is financially the better way to do it... Where would I find the serial number? Is it the stamped number on the side panel? If so, there are two numbers: 95-1740 and THO-12051. Cheers!

[SavannahLion]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Sell the cabinet as a Mame table and sell the original CPU separately. Where would I go to sell an original CPU? Ebay or are there more specialized sites?

eBay is one. Or you can try to sell it right here in our BST section or head on over to KLOV and sell it there.

As I mentioned, I think the board was initially programmed with HEAD-ON because that's what's printed on the front and side panels. Later on, it was reprogrammed and switched to PacMan and even later to Pengo, because these are the description leaflets under the glass with Pengo being the one on the top and PacMan hidden underneath Pengo.

It wasn't "programmed" per se, it (the board) was outright replaced. The solder job on the blue connector is a giveaway on that. I don't know what Head-On-N's boards look like, but the numbers on the board does match up with the MAME references I located for Pac-Man. Oddly enough though, I took a closer look at MAWS Pac-Man board (via Google cache) and the it looks way different. I'm doubting it may be a Pac-Man.... I can compare with my modified Pac-Man board later and see if it's a different version. I think Pac-Man's have a weird power circuit on-board, thus the heat sink, yours lacks a heat sink.

I'm reasonably sure it's not a Pengo board. (Look around her attic, you might get lucky and find it ). MAWS (it's down, again!) has a picture of a Pengo Rev 1 board and it looks nothing like what you have there. It's possible, but those board numbers didn't come up with Pengo.

It's also possible it's a clone. I can't read Hiragana/Katakana well enough to make out more than just a few letters. 

It'd be easier to ID it if one could cross reference the IC's on there and if MAWS was actually up and running. You can also fire it up and listen to the sounds, if you hear the universal sounds of Pac, that's what you have. You'll have to double check all the connections to make sure they're sound though.

I already have a Dell Pentium 4 with a decent ATI graphic board and a 17" LCD Panel, so converting it to MAME should be relatively painless, I hope.
Thanks for the tip regarding the stickers although they are in Japanese... Cheers

The fact it's in Japanese isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure someone somewhere would like it.

[Le Chuck]

My two cents, if you want cash out of it then sell it as is.  Restores are labors of love and frankly so is conversion.  Don't expect to recoup much over parts for either path.  People that want to buy classics have too many high dollar options already and people that want old bodies with new MAME guts come to this site among others and embark on life altering DIY adventures... or buy a new one from the numerous kit and custom companies out there.

Your best bet is a restorist who will take that machine back to glory but frankly, that guy doesn't want the cab if you have restored it yourself.  Pick a price and sell.  Check out what cocktail prefab kits are going for and price in that neighborhood calling this "Retro Arcaders Dream" or "Awesome Cocktail Body Perfect for RESTORATION or OTHER!!!!"  Make sure you use obnoxious punctuation in your posting on Craig's so it really stands out 

[CrazyKongFan]

I think the PCB is a Namco Super Pac-Man board. There's a pic of one over at ggdb.com (found it by googling, don't have it handy at the moment) that looked identical. Would also match up with the SP on the ROM's and PROM's. The Namco one is different than the Midway one. The Namco one uses an edge connector, plus a 3-pin power and 6-pin video cable, and is the same pinout (with a few mods for controls) as other Namco games like Bosconian, Gaplus, Galaga, and Mappy. The Midway one uses headers/pins instead of an edge connector.

[CrazyKongFan]

OK, here's a pic of the Namco Super Pac board over at ggdb.com:

from page http://www.ggdb.com/Picture.aspx?c=Coin-Op&s=Arcade&m=Bally+Midway&vid=2935&p=6273 (yes, even though the page says Bally Midway, the pic is the Namco version. It looks nothing like the Bally Midway version)

[SavannahLion]

Damn, I didn't even think of that. So my original guess was dead on.

So unless something bizarre happened with that board, it's a reasonably safe assumption you have a Pacman board and one can go forward by using that as a starting point.

I would verify my connections before powering up, just to be safe.

[freewilly]

Thank you all! Amazing forum! Cheers, Marc